Bender
by Arcole
Summary: COMPLETE - Sequel to Voice of the Earth and Land of Fire and Stone. When Sokka is lost at sea, will he be saved or will the return of an old love be his downfall? Sokka/Suki, Zuko/Toph, Aang/Katara, and Jet/Mai.
1. Chapter 1

_**Disclaimer:** I don't own Avatar: The Last Airbender. But I sure do love playing with its characters!!_

**Author's Note:** This is a threequel to two earlier works, Land of Fire and Stone and Voice of the Earth. If you don't want to read them, here's the basics. Zuko/Toph, Katara/Aang, Sokka/Suki, and Jet/Mai. Jet is not dead. He is now king of Omashu. Practically everybody has kids. It takes place about ten years after the fall of Ozai. The rest should be self-explanatory. I hope.

**Bender**

_Chapter 1_

Sokka stood in the small wheelhouse of his newest fishing vessel and looked out across the rolling horizon before him. At last the clouds were parting and the wind was beginning to die down. He glanced a few feet to the side where the Duke sat, half lounging and asleep in a chair. It had been a long night, a long day, and now was almost night again as they'd weathered one of the worst summer storms Sokka could remember.

The vessel still tossed and rolled with the huge breakers, and as Sokka looked across the deck, he could see timbers hanging where the decking had literally been ripped loose by the waves. However, most of their shrimpcrab pots were still safely lashed down, thanks to the crew's quick work and the Duke's experience. After all, he'd grown up fishing with Sokka and Hakoda near the South Pole, where the storms were fierce and the water was an icy deathtrap to any unlucky enough to fall overboard.

Sokka had been glad to have the Duke on board this trip serving as first mate rather than captain of his own vessel. Ever since they'd expanded the fleet into the warmer waters off the coast of the Earth Kingdom to go after the smaller shrimpcrab that migrated off the coast of Kyoshi Island, Sokka had been experimenting with a new style of ship.

This style was a cross between the traditional sailing vessels of the Watertribe and the newer engine-driven design of a Fire Nation destroyer. Thanks to work from Haru and Teo, it also sported a new form of fuel—an earthbended coal/vegetation blend that burned hot and efficient, but with much less smoke and waste than the earlier Fire Nation formula.

This new fuel was part of Zuko's big plan to increase cooperation between the nations. The coal was Earth Kingdom, and the vegetation came from some of the volcanic islands of the Fire Nation. Sokka thought it was the fuel of the future. The range of the ships was dramatically increased, and time from fishing grounds to port was dramatically decreased.

The new boat was fast and versatile—if he ran out of veggiecoal, he used wind; if he ran out of wind, he used veggiecoal. It was a win/win no matter how you looked at it in his opinion.

However, none of the rest of the Watertribe wanted any part of it. Not even his own father. The ship wasn't traditional and it bore too many reminders of Fire Nation naval ships coming to destroy.

In the end, Sokka sold his interest in the traditional fleet and ended up sinking nearly everything he had in outfitting this new ship and setting up the trade system that would bring the exotic shrimpcrab delicacy to the tables of Omashu and Ba Sing Se—at tremendous profit for all involved.

Provided they didn't sink in the weather, he thought to himself as the ship took another bad roll.

He ran a hand through his long dark hair, taking a moment to tie it back into his customary ponytail. It had come loose sometime in the past twenty-four hours, and this was the first break in the storm long enough to to give him time to pull it back out of his face again.

Then he rubbed his eyes and his face in an effort to rouse himself. While those thirty-footers had been washing over the bow, nearly swamping them several times, he'd not trusted anyone else at the wheel, not even the Duke. That made a grand total of at least 36 hours without sleep.

But he'd catch up on missed sleep when he got home. This was his ship, his crew, his responsibility. However, now that the weather appeared to be behind them, maybe he could grab a couple of hours of rest.

"Hey, the Duke!" he called to the young man sleeping next to him.

"Hmm? What's up?" the Duke replied immediately, shaking sleep away with the alertness of a true fisherman, used to rising at unusual hours.

"Things look a lot calmer now. Can you spell me for a while? I need some time in the sack," Sokka answered with a yawn.

"No problem," answered the young man as he pushed a hand through his unruly brown hair and rose, stretching as best he could in the small wheelhouse.

"If you need me, I'll be unconscious," Sokka continued as he handed over the wheel of the boat. "Wake me in a couple of hours."

The Duke cast a practiced eye across the water. Above them, the clouds had begun to clear, allowing the full moon to shine down at last across the rapidly darkening waters. "I think the worst is behind us," the young man ventured. "Looks like we can make port for repairs without running back through that mess."

"Yeah, go ahead and set course for home," Sokka sighed in resignation. "I just wish we had a full catch to go with us. The migration is nearly over and we've only caught about half of what we'd planned." He shook his head in disappointment.

"Even then, we'll make enough to pay for expenses and have enough left to refit for the speckled tunamackerel run in a couple of months," the Duke offered in his most encouraging voice.

Sokka gave him a nod and a weary smile, but he was still not happy with the results. He'd wanted more than expenses.

Suki had been wanting to move to a bigger place. With six year old Zutara, three year old Toma, and the one year old twins Aiko and Hasue, their little house on Kyoshi Island had grown crowded indeed. She missed their old place further south, and truthfully so did he.

For one thing, his new neighbors were his in-laws, he thought with a silent laugh. Then he countered the laughter. Pao and Shei were good people and a great help to Suki when he was out fishing. He was glad to have family nearby.

And they were semi-famous—having been part of the gaang that took down Fire Lord Ozai and saved the world.

But even when you're famous, he thought, it could be hard to come home. And Kyoshi Island was his wife's home. A home where she'd been a great warrior. And now she was a fisherman's wife.

Sokka sighed once more as he navigated down the narrow steps to the deck below. He started to turn through the door that led to the bunks below when he decided to take a turn around the deck instead, just to check the damage before darkness set in completely.

The ship was a wreck. Half the starboard rail was completely missing, lost during the storm. Their fishing traps, though still securely lashed down, were broken and battered. Maybe half of them were still usable without major repair.

Sokka yelped in anger as he nearly stepped into a hole on deck where one of the wide wooden planks had been snapped and wrestled free by the power of the waves. The boat still rolled with the ocean, taking waves over the side, and he knew if he didn't want to get soaked, he'd soon have to go below.

Overhead, the stars were beginning to shine in earnest and the moonlight glimmered on the whitecaps as the sky grew darker. Sokka stepped carefully to the aft rail which hung precariously and tried to pull it back into some semblance of repair in the fading light. It fought him as he pulled against it. And the more it held back on him the angrier he got.

However, the anger, frustration, disappointment, and worry fueled his efforts, and he managed to haul the heavy timber back into place. With a sigh, he stood and looked back over the ruin of his new boat.

"Short of sinking, it couldn't get much worse than this," he stated in evaluation and turned to go below.

Then without warning, a rogue wave washed over the side, spilling him effortlessly over the broken-once-more aft rail.

Though summertime, the waves were still cool as they washed over him, pulling him beneath the water. He managed to break the surface, aware that the boat was already fifteen feet away. He began swimming toward it, but another wave rose up around him, this one even taller than the last and he had to fight just to keep his head above water.

Already exhausted from lack of sleep, his arms and legs felt like lead as he tried to tread water, calling out for help. But in the sound of the waves and the engine, he knew there was no way he could have been heard.

His boots and leathers began to fill with water, dragging at him like lead weights. Reflexively he tugged off his tunic and let it slip away into the depths.

Sokka tried to kick his boots off his feet, but they refused to budge. The knots were too tight. He had a sudden flash of coming home and holding out his feet for Zutara and Toma. They had so much trouble untying the leather thongs, especially when the knots had gotten wet and shrank into themselves. But they never got tired of trying to pick them loose so they could pull off Daddy's boots for him.

He wished with all his heart that he could see them again.

As the waves washed over him once more and the leather of his clothing grew heavier, he knew he would never make it to shore. The lights of the boat had begun to recede into the distance. He called out to them again, but the waves had already driven him a good fifty or more feet from the boat. Likely, the Duke wouldn't even know he was gone until he was ready to be relieved. Probably not until morning when they made harbor, knowing the Duke.

He tried once again to pull his feet free of his waterlogged boots, but between the incessant pounding of the waves over his head and the numbness of his fingers in the cool water and the uncooperative leather thongs, he knew it was hopeless.

Even had he pulled them off, he was over twenty miles from shore in heavy weather without anything to cling to. This was it, he realized. This was how it would end.

"Oh, Suki," he called to her. "I am so sorry. I am so sorry to do this to you."

Another wave pressed him beneath its surface and he briefly considered just breathing it in and letting the water take him away. But he couldn't do it. He couldn't stop fighting for life. His wife and his children deserved so much more than this.

He thought of his twin babies, son Aiko and daughter Hasue. They'd just started walking and babbling Dada when he came in the door. They wouldn't understand when he didn't come home again. Neither would Zutara or Toma. The thought filled him with unutterable sadness.

"Take care of them for me," he prayed to the spirits. And the moon shone down on him with a beautiful light. "Watch over them for me, Yue!" he called to her where she floated so serenely above it all. Then another wave washed over him, filling his lungs with water.

And the sea pulled him into its embrace, like a mother with her child. He looked up through the dark water and could still see the white orb of the moon above. But as his consciousness slipped away, all he could see was Suki's face.

Hundreds of miles away, Aang stood on the balcony of his suite in Omashu and looked up at the same moon overhead. Below, his wife Katara practiced her waterbending with a quiet concentration and peace that could only come from having both their boys in bed.

Three year old Bumi would have loved to stay up and watch Mama practice in the moonlight, but six month old Kodaso had been asleep for well over an hour. Aang gave a little earthbending glance down the stone tiled corridors to the children's rooms where they slept peacefully. Toph's talents had added a new layer to his earthbending that no other avatar had ever experienced, he thought with a smile.

Then he turned back to where Katara worked, her hands and arms moving in a sinuous ballet of power and grace as the water suspended between them glistened and shone in the moonlight. She loved to bend by the light of a full moon when a waterbender's powers were at their peak.

And he loved to watch her.

Even the trees and flowers of the courtyard moved and swayed with her as her bending encompassed everything around her. Sometimes Aang could even feel the pull on himself as she worked. He closed his eyes and relaxed in the ebb and flow, letting his own waterbending abilities resonate with hers so that he could feel her movements with his entire self.

Then out of nowhere, it all stopped.

Katara's water fell from her hands with a splash and she cried out in surprise. The sky had gone suddenly dark as if a cloud had passed over the moon, but as Aang looked up he realized there was no cloud in the sky. The moon still hung there, but its light had gone gray and dim.

"What happened?" Katara asked, fear in her voice. "What happened to the moon?"

"I don't know," Aang answered. He tried to waterbend the globe back up from the ground, but his waterbending abilities were gone. He ran down the stairs to the courtyard below where Katara trembled anxiously, her arms wrapped around herself as if she'd grown suddenly cold.

Then Aang tried to earthbend a small boulder without any problem at all. Likewise, he easily produced a palm full of fire. Only his waterbending abilities were gone.

"Has something happened at the north pole?" he wondered aloud. But even as he said it, the sky began to grow lighter as the moon's glow returned, slowly at first, then rapidly returning to its full illumination.

Katara waved her hand over the soggy ground and her globe of water surged up to meet her as if nothing had happened. "What was that all about?" she asked nervously as she replaced the water in the flask at her side.

"I have no idea," Aang replied. "But I think we'd better see about finding out."

Late the next day, Suki had just dished up supper for the children when she heard the unmistakable sound of the front door opening. Zutara and Toma were up from the table in a flash, both yelling, "Daddy!"

She winced a little at the sound, having had a persistent headache all day long. She'd been trying to get the storage room reorganized, but with four little ones constantly underfoot, the effort had been more than it was worth.

Plus, her husband had a tendency to keep every piece of clothing he'd ever owned. She thrown out sacks full of outgrown trousers and coats, worn out socks and undershirts—including a couple of old shirts that he swore were good for wearing when gutting fish. She personally believed even dead fish deserved better than those holey things.

Then there were the boxes of indecipherable papers---scraps of notes about new boats, fishing schedules, trade routes, invention plans. It was impossible to tell what was worth keeping and what needed to be thrown away to make room for more scraps of paper.

In the end, she'd kept it all. "I just hope you've managed to land a full catch this time, Sokka," she'd actually said aloud. "We have got to have more room or you are going to have to clean some of this junk out!"

She wiped Aiko's mouth and rose from the table to greet her husband. But to her surprise, the Duke stood in the doorway instead, an odd expression on his face.

"Where's Daddy, the Duke?" asked Zutara curiously.

"You kids go out and play a while," the Duke said to them, but he was staring straight at Suki. "I need to talk to your mom a minute."

"Go see if Grandma has any candy," Suki added, her eyes never leaving the Duke's.

In seconds, the two older children had dashed next door to her mother's house, leaving her alone in the common room with the young fisherman.

"Where's Sokka?" Suki managed to whisper.

The Duke looked away from her, unable to meet her eyes any longer. "I'm so sorry, Suki," he began, then his voice broke and his shoulders began to shake. "It's my fault. I was on watch. I am so sorry."

"What happened?" she asked more forcefully, fear descending on her. "Where is Sokka?"

"We lost him. He's gone," came the broken reply. "He's gone, Suki."

And just like that, her entire world crashed around her.

When the children returned with her mother, she informed them calmly that Daddy wouldn't be home for a while—that was all she could manage. Her mother looked at her oddly, but kept her peace. Instead she helped get the children bathed and readied for bed.

Then she kissed them and tucked them in, fingering the dark hair of Toma's little warrior's wolf tail, then the beginnings of Aiko's. And Zutara and Hasue kissed her and blinked at her with those watertribe blue eyes.

Somehow she managed to get them to sleep. And her mother stayed in the house for her as she pulled Sokka's old winter coat out of the sack she'd tossed it in that morning. She clutched the heavy blue leather in her arms, her fingers running over its patches and darned places where it had been snagged by hooks and worn through at the elbows from too many winters of hard work.

But the trim of the hood was still soft and clean and the white fur danced lightly in the breeze as she walked down to the beach. She stood there a moment as the sun went down and looked out over the water.

She could still smell him as she pressed her face into the warmth of the coat. She breathed in his scent and she held it tightly.

He was lost, the Duke had said. Lost at sea. Washed overboard over twenty miles from shore. They'd not realized he was gone for hours.

"It must have happened when he turned over the wheel to me," the Duke had said, tears streaming down his face. "His bunk hadn't been slept in." Then he'd took another deep breath and said, "It's my fault, Suki. I should have made sure he got in okay."

She couldn't reply. What could she say to him? How could she comfort him when her comfort was gone? Then the young man had gone back to the dock.

"I won't stop looking for him, Suki," the young man had said. "I won't stop until I find him." But she could hear the hopelessness in his voice. He'd been gone too long, too far out. They wouldn't find him.

Now she stood at the edge of the water where the earth met the ocean. "Sokka?" she called softly. "Sokka, baby, can you hear me?"

Clouds of gray and purple lined the horizon as the sun went down over the waters before her. The waves lapped lightly against the sand, the sound her only answer in the darkness.

"Sokka?" she called again in a hoarse whisper. She hugged his coat to her closer, her fingers clenching the soft fur, as she sank to her knees on the sand. His scent washed over her again and she felt loss and emptiness and sorrow.

"Sokka!" she screamed at the top of her lungs. Then she could only weep in great heartbroken sobs.

A continent away, Zuko also watched the sun go down, but from the back of the great golden dragon Blaze. He circled the capital of the Fire Nation, surveying the land below him, not as a king, even though he reigned as Fire Lord, but more as a servant to the country and the people below him.

The new Chan Shipping Complex was coming along nicely in its construction, he decided. But he had questions about the new fish processing facility. Questions that needed answers.

As he and Blaze touched down lightly in the palace courtyard, he could see his wife Toph standing on the balcony watching for his return, their son Rokiroh in her arms. She waved at him at the second the great dragon's feet touched the ground. He waved back, knowing that with her incredible ability to earthbend, she could see him do it.

Baby Rokiroh waved too, and Zuko's heart swelled with pride. He could see Toph talking to her son as they went back inside, presumably to call for dinner for the Fire Lord. Zuko's stomach growled just at the thought of food.

Then he walked with Blaze into the huge house that had been built for him in the courtyard. An entire

wing of the palace had to be reconstructed to accommodate the huge creature, but it was a task Zuko was more than happy to undertake. The dragons had returned to the Fire Nation and he would move heaven and earth to make them welcome and show them respect.

After he made certain Blaze had his own dinner and had scrubbed the scales of his head and neck well with a stiff brush—a grooming that made the big dragon purr and produce little snorts of contented flame—he gave him a deep bow and wished him a very good night.

Blaze, however, did not stand on that sort of ceremony and gave Zuko a lick to the forehead with his rough, hot tongue. Anyone but a firebender would have been burned, but for Zuko it was merely a kiss—though a slightly wet one.

"Tomorrow, my friend, I would like to make a trip to Kyoshi Island to consult with my old friend Sokka," Zuko stated. "Would you be willing to make the trip with me?"

Zuko got an affirmative answer from the dragon—not in words, nor in thoughts, but in something else, something that spoke into his spirit. "Might my wife and child accompany us?" he continued.

Amusement colored Blaze's answer. He found Zuko overly formal, but amusing. Blaze enjoyed interacting with Toph very much. She was not formal at all. And the baby would be no weight at all to carry---as well as a pleasure. He was very much in favor of the trip indeed.

Toph was less reserved in her excitement. She rose from the dinner table and in full view of all the servants, threw her arms around her husband and kissed him passionately. It was always such a treat to get to visit their extended family. She couldn't wait to see them all again—especially the new babies.

"They've never seen Rokiroh either. He'll have so much fun with Sokka's little ones," she declared firmly. "And I think Aang and Katara are still in Omashu for that summit meeting. We can swing by there on our way home and visit with them and with everybody in Omashu!"

Zuko privately thought that Omashu was a long way out of the way to just "swing by," but he didn't have the heart to say so to his excited wife. In fact, he felt sure that he could easily come up with some very good reasons to pay a state visit to Omashu while they were traveling.

"I believe Jet sent us a scroll about an upcoming trade summit that Aang would be presiding over. We were invited to attend. Perhaps a state appearance would be a good idea. We haven't been to Omashu since his and Mai's wedding," Zuko agreed as he gave her a discreet little squeeze. "Blaze has already agreed to take us to Kyoshi Island. Perhaps he will be agreeable to make the journey a bit longer."

Blaze was more than agreeable. Though fully grown at last, he was still a young dragon and enjoyed the opportunity to see the world. Buoyed by the strength that came directly from his spiritual connection with fire, he made the trip with minimal rest stops, coming to land in the central courtyard of Kyoshi Island only a day after the Duke's return to port without his captain.

The entire town turned out to witness the arrival of the Fire Lord and his Lady, as well as the baby crown prince—not to mention the gigantic golden dragon. Within moments Suki had come out the door of her house on the square, fairly running to Toph.

"I can't believe you got the message so fast!" she said. "Not even Aang and Katara have come yet."

"What message?" Zuko asked as an older woman approached. But Suki couldn't make the words come out, so her mother Shei provided the answer.

"Sokka has been lost at sea," Shei managed to explain, despite the tears in her own voice. "About twenty miles out in a storm last night." Then she cleared her throat and continued, "Every available boat has cast off to search for him."

"Did he have anything to keep him afloat? Was he near any land that he might have reached?" Zuko asked as he strode purposefully back to Blaze.

Suki's mother shook her head sadly as Suki tried her best not to cry.

With a look back at Toph and his little son, Zuko reached up to Blaze's jaw, giving it good scratch as he asked, "Can you keep me in the air a little longer? I need to look for my friend." Blaze just put out a forepaw for Zuko to step onto to mount into the saddle.

Toph blinked against the dust that rose around them as the dragon's wings beat hard against the air to propel him and her husband overhead. She bended the cloud of earth back away from the crowd—especially away from Rokiroh's face. Then she felt little hands pulling at her dress.

"Aunt Toph!" came an insistent call and she looked down to see Zutara and Toma before her. "Was that a dragon?" Zutara asked in awe.

"Yes, sweetheart, it was. That was Blaze. He brought us here for a visit," Toph replied. Then she took Suki's arm and gently led her back inside to sit.

Once inside the house, Suki's focus turned quickly to tending to the children. "Would you two like to have a cookie?" she asked them. "Then you can show Rokiroh all of your toys."

Toma nodded and reached out a chubby hand to his mother. Without thinking, Toph commented, "That one is Sokka made over."

Suki's hand trembled as she handed her son a cookie, then stroked his cheek. "He can't be gone, Toph. He just can't be," she whispered. "How could I live without him?"

"They'll find him, Suki," Toph replied, all the comfort she could manage in her voice. "They'll have to find him."

But as Zuko soared over the ocean with Blaze, he knew in his heart it was hopeless. Even now, the waves were still perilous the further he traveled from the harbor of Kyoshi Island. If Sokka had been without any way to stay afloat, there was no way he would still be swimming.

He looked out across the dark water, hoping beyond hope to catch sight of a dark head bobbing in the surf. But even as he searched, he knew their chances of spotting him, even if right on top of him were next to none. Maybe Aang in the avatar state would be able to tell more.

Zuko considered flying to Omashu instead to get word to Aang faster, then considered that a message had already been sent—probably by hawk. In all likelihood, Aang and Katara were already on their way. So he continued to search instead.

He and Blaze flew tirelessly, sometimes soaring over the boats which also worked a search grid, and with each pass, Zuko's heart grew heavier with the realization of just how overwhelming and ultimately fruitless their task truly was. As darkness fell, both he and Blaze were completely exhausted, though he continued to search by moonlight until clouds moved in, making the sea a rolling sheet of utter blackness.

He landed once again, making sure that Blaze was well housed and fed. "You worked too hard for me today, my friend," he told the big dragon.

Blaze's huge amber eyes glimmered in reassurance even as the lids drooped in weariness. Zuko knew the dragon was happy to have flown him, but sad that their search had been in vain. Blaze drank heavily from the huge trough of water that was prepared for him; then his head sank onto his forepaws and within seconds Zuko could hear the deep breaths of sleep coming from those huge lungs.

Zuko passed a warning to those nearby to avoid being too close to the head of the sleeping dragon. "He snorts flame in his sleep," he explained and watched as a haywagon was quickly moved to the far side of the courtyard.

Then he heard a whuffing sound overhead and only just managed to dodge Appa's rapidly descending furry form as the skybison landed solidly on the ground.

"Good job, buddy," Aang's voice came from his seat on Appa's head. "We made it. You just rest now."

Zuko reached up to help Aang down from his perch atop the large skybison. "I think there's room for Appa next to Blaze," he offered, then helped Aang settle his furry friend in for the night.

"We got here about an hour after you guys," Aang explained in a sad, tired voice. "I've spent the entire day searching. Even in the avatar state, I couldn't get a glimpse of him." They stopped about halfway across the courtyard and Aang turned to look at Zuko.

"Zuko, I don't think we're going to find him. I think it's too late," he said and his shoulders sagged as if the weight of the world lay on them.

They made their way back to the house, where Aang was immediately greeted by Katara, her face pale and worried. Toph likewise clung to Zuko. At the table sat Jet and Mai, holding hands. Suki sat by the fire, turning a piece of paper over and over in her hands. As the door opened, she'd looked up with hope in her eyes, only to have it dashed by the sad shake of their heads.

An unbidden sigh went through the room. Mai and Toph rose and dished up some food for Aang and Zuko who both ate gratefully. No one said a word, however. No one knew what to say.

Then there was a soft knock at the door, and the Duke entered. He looked like he hadn't slept in nights—which was in fact the truth. Dark circles ringed his eyes and he stumbled a little as he made his way into the room.

Jet guided him to a chair and passed him a cup of tea. The young man took it gratefully and downed it in one long drink. Then he wiped his mouth with one unsteady hand and set the cup on the table, whispering a hoarse thank you as he did so. Then without another word, he lay his head on his arms and fell fast asleep.

Katara found a little blanket on the sofa and draped it gently across the young man's shoulders.

The room was silent except for the crackle of the fireplace. The children slept peacefully in the next room, unaware of the drama unfolding in the house.

Then beside the fire, Suki began to cry, soft heartbroken sobs that she did her best to hide. Katara went to her then, pulling her into a comforting embrace, her own tears mingling with Suki's.

Darkness fell in earnest and Mai rose to light the lamps. Jet walked over to close the windows against the cool night air but stopped short to stare at the moon as it gleamed in the sky with an unearthly beauty.

Then, without warning, the door swung open, and Suki gave a cry of joy as her husband took a step into the room.

"I'm home," Sokka stated in a distant voice as if he had trouble believing it. Then his eyes rolled back and he crashed heavily to the floor, completely unconscious.


	2. Chapter 2

_Chapter Two_

To say everyone ran to Sokka joyfully would be an understatement. Suki reached his side in a heartbeat, as did Katara, her healing waters out of her flask instantly. Jet was closest and helped Suki roll Sokka onto his back. As he did, Sokka's dark hair fell to the side, revealing that a section of hair just one side of the center of his forehead had gone completely white.

Then Jet stepped aside to allow Aang to kneel beside the fallen watertribesman, his tattoos going a telltale blue as he entered the avatar state.

Katara's waters swirled around her brother as Suki clenched Sokka's hand and stroked his face, her breath coming in ragged gasps.

"I think he's okay," Katara said at last, but there was a distinct note of uncertainty in her voice. "He's really tired though."

"How did he get here?" Jet asked curiously, and he and Zuko headed out the door to greet his rescuers. But when they opened the door, they found the courtyard of the city empty and dark. Bits of seaweed clung to Sokka's boots and trousers, but otherwise he was completely dry.

At the table, all the commotion had woken the Duke. He looked over to see his captain lying on the floor safe and sound. The sight broke him and a single sharp sob of relief tore itself free from his chest.

Meanwhile, Suki had regained her composure and turned her attention to getting her husband off the floor and into bed. The men carried the unconscious Sokka into their little bedroom. "Man, he's heavy," was the comment voiced quietly, but no one could tell exactly who said it.

Once Sokka was placed on the low mattress, Suki shooed the rest of the crew out so she could settle him in private.

She ended up cutting the thongs that held his boots tied to his legs as the knots were so dried into themselves that she couldn't untie them. She managed to free him of his heavy trousers as well, the blue fabric dry but dusty with algae and white crusts of salt and sand. His tunic was gone and his white long-sleeved undershirt hung in tatters, as if nearly torn off him. She completed its removal, noting bloodstains on it in places, but Sokka didn't bear any sign of injury.

After several minutes she at last she had him as comfortable as she could make him, a light coverlet cast across his still form. "I know you don't like to sleep hot," she whispered as she stroked his cheek and pushed back that odd lock of white hair that fell into his face. Then she bent her head against his strong, broad chest and listened to him breathe, listened to the beat of his heart.

He was alive. Her Sokka was alive. He was home with her again.

That was all that mattered.

In the next room, the rest of the gaang sat quietly, respecting her need to be with her husband. "Are you sure he's okay?" Zuko asked at last.

"He seemed fine," Katara answered, but everyone could tell she was holding back.

"What else?" Toph asked in a leading voice.

Katara sighed, but it was Aang who replied.

"There's something different about him," the avatar stated. "He's physically fine, but there's been a shift of some kind in him. Something spiritual, something chi related."

"That's not much of an answer," Mai commented dryly.

"I know, I know," Aang replied. "But until he wakes up and tells us what happened, we don't know anything else."

A quiet mumbling sound came from the fire and the group looked over to see the Duke curled up asleep in the floor. "Poor kid," said Jet as he rose to check on him. "Suki's mom said he'd been out searching day and night ever since it happened. And before that, they'd spent a couple of days riding out a bad storm. I'll see if I can't get him to bed somewhere."

"We need to go tell Suki's family that Sokka is back anyway," Katara said. "They've all been worried sick."

In the end, Katara and Aang went next door to tell Suki's parents that their son-in-law had come home mysteriously but alive and well. Pao and Shei were astonished and relieved to say the least. They also helped get the Duke home safely and showed the two royal couples of the group to appropriate lodgings in the city with only Katara and Aang staying at Sokka's house.

Zuko and Toph along with Jet and Mai found themselves guests of the island governor. The governor and his wife showed them to a pair of lovely guest houses overlooking the harbor with much bowing and scraping. It wasn't often that Kyoshi Island had visitors of such importance as the Fire Lord and Lady and the King and Queen of Omashu—especially not at the same time and not along with the Avatar. The man was beside himself.

In the end, Jet and Zuko had to practically push the governor off to bed before turning in after a very long and eventful day. At last the island went quiet as everyone went to sleep, the stars turning overhead, the moon shining down protectively.

Sometime during the night, Suki had felt Sokka roll over in bed and she knew he was simply sleeping. So she curled up against him, glad to have his warmth beside her again.

Despite her exhaustion, she'd barely slept. She'd certainly tried not to. As long as she was awake, she knew it was real, that her Sokka had come home to her again, despite the odds, despite the impossibility—he had come home. If she fell asleep, it might all become a dream.

Then as the night grew longer, she finally drifted off, her body pressed against his, her arm wrapped around his waist to keep him safe with her.

Katara entered quietly the next morning, a pitcher of water in her hand. Sokka had seemed a little dehydrated to her the night before and she wanted to be sure he got something to drink when he woke.

As she sat the pitcher down on the small table beside the bed, her brother mumbled a little in his sleep and began to stir. A quick check showed that he was sleeping normally, probably dreaming, she decided.

But he settled again quickly, his face relaxing into peaceful rest with Suki snuggled next to him, finally sleeping soundly, and Katara decided it could wait. So she backed quietly out of the room.

All was quiet for a moment with the exception of the sound of light breathing as the couple slept. Then the sound grew slightly louder as Sokka's breaths came deeper, more urgently.

Over on the dressing table, something rattled and the pitcher of water began to tremble slightly, then began to tip from side to side as if in an earth tremor. However, the only thing moving in the room was the pitcher. The rattling grew louder as the pitcher now rocked back and forth wildly, the water in it sloshing about.

Suddenly the water shot out of the mouth of the jug and splashed violently against the far wall, spraying the room with tiny droplets. Sokka sat up as if shot, one hand thrust out in front of him, his eyes wide with fear.

Suki sat up as well, wiping drops of water from her face. "What was that?" she asked sleepily. Then she became aware that Sokka sat next to her, breathing heavily. "Sokka, baby? Are you okay?" she asked, rubbing his back.

"Where am I?" he asked, his voice rough. "How did I get here?"

"You're home, baby," Suki assured him. "You're home."

Sokka turned to her with wonder in his eyes. "Is this real? Are you real?" he whispered, reaching out to touch her face.

"Yes, Sokka," she answered, tears glistening in her eyes. "This is real. You're home."

In all the time she'd known Sokka, she'd seen him happy, she'd seen him angry, she'd seen him anxious, and she'd seen him sad. But she'd never seen him cry.

Until then.

He reached for her and held her tightly in his arms as he wept like a little boy, his strong frame shook by hard sobs. She just held him and stroked his hair and his back, her tears flowing freely again as well. At last he lay down with his arms around her and went back to sleep.

But Suki couldn't sleep. She eased herself free of his embrace and stepped onto the floor right into a puddle of water. The wall was wet as well. She noticed the pitcher of water on the side table, but it was completely dry inside. Very strange, she thought to herself.

She threw a few towels over the puddle, grabbed some clean clothes, and stepped into the wash room. After a good bath, she felt much improved and went back into the bedroom where her husband still slept even though the sun well into in the sky.

In the common room, Katara and Aang sat with the little ones, feeding them breakfast. Kodaso and her babies Aiko and Hasue giggled and crowed as Uncle Aang made faces while feeding them. Bumi and Toma had begun playing with the toy skybisons and badgermoles Sokka had carved from driftwood.

"We need a dragon now," Toma stated firmly. Bumi nodded in agreement. Both little boys had begged all morning to go see Blaze, but until everyone was up and well, Aang had held out.

"Poor Appa. All your admiration has gone to Blaze now," he teased the boys.

"Don't worry, Uncle Aang," Zutara said from behind her little dollhouse. "I'll always love Appa best." And to demonstrate, she reached for the stuffed skybison in her babydoll bed and settled him beside her. "Do you need a drink of water?" she asked it.

The little girl rose from the floor and got a breakfast bowl from the table, pouring a little water into it.

"Don't spill, please," Katara instructed.

"Oh, I never spill," the little girl assured her aunt. Then she carefully set the bowl on the floor and began to circle her finger over the bowl. "I'll stir it up for you, Appa," she declared.

Aang watched with interest as the water in the bowl began to follow her finger. Zutara was bending. He gave a little gesture to Katara and watched as his wife's face fairly began to glow with pride.

"That's a nice trick," Aang said appreciatively. "Your Aunt Katara can do that too. She'll have to show you some more tricks."

"I'm a waterbender," Zutara declared confidently.

"I'm a firebender, like Uncle Zuko," Toma stated just as confidently. "I'm going to ride a dragon one day."

"No, you won't," Zutara snapped back, secure in her knowledge. "You have to be Fire Nation to be a firebender. You can only be a waterbender like me."

"I don't want to be a waterbender," Toma whined. "If I can't be a firebender, I'm going to be a warrior and a fisherman like Daddy."

"Hey, you two keep it down," Suki said as she came into the room. "Your daddy is still asleep. He got in really late last night. He had a rough trip home."

"That's an understatement," Aang offered quietly to himself. Then since the little ones were full, he wiped faces and hands and set them each onto the floor to play.

"I wanted to be sure Sokka got some water when he woke up," Katara said. "He seemed a little dehydrated last night when he got in."

"Well, there's a pitcher on the table but all the water is on the wall and on the floor," Suki stated. "I was going to get something to clean it up. None of the kids have been in there, have they?"

"No," Aang replied curiously. "They've been with us."

Katara got up and went into the bedroom quietly. Sure enough, there sat the pitcher, but it was bone dry and empty. And on the wall and floor she could see the large puddle of wetness. With a gesture, she bended the water back up and into the pitcher again.

"What are you doing?" Sokka's voice asked sharply as he sat up.

"Just cleaning up a little," Katara answered. "How are you feeling, Sokka?"

"Fine," her brother answered. "Just confused."

"What about?"

"How did I get here?" he asked. "Where's Suki?"

"She's in the common room with the kids. Do you want some breakfast?" Katara asked gently. "How about something to drink?"

Sokka rose unsteadily to his feet. "Give me some pants," he ordered.

Katara looked through the chest by the bed and soon found a pair that looked soft and comfortable. He managed to get into them, though he was staggering a little as he made his way to the door. Once in the common room, however, he put on his biggest grin and headed to the big chair by the fireplace, only to be covered up with children when he got there.

Squeals of Daddy and Uncle Sokka mingled with babbles of Dada as six little ones made their way into his lap. Aang gently detangled his two from the mix so that Sokka could spend that time with his own kids. He could only imagine how the big watertribesman felt.

Curious Zutara had immediately noticed the white streak in his hair and made a face as she ran her fingers through it. "Where did you get this, Daddy?" she asked.

But in the turmoil of Toma's talk of the dragon outside and the babies' jumping up and down on his legs, he wasn't sure what she was asking about. "Let's get Daddy some breakfast," Suki encouraged and the two older children crawled down to help.

Toma carefully carried a cup of juice to his father, using both hands as instructed, when Bumi backed into him, knocking him right into Sokka's lap, juice and all.

But as Aang watched, the juice flew up out of the cup and right back into it again, not a drop spilled. Sokka deftly removed it from the boy's hand and took a long, deep drink. "That is good stuff, Toma," he said to the little one, giving his wolftail a little tug.

Then Suki extricated the two babies out of his lap so he could eat in peace. "Aren't you coming to the table, Daddy?" asked Zutara.

"Not this time," Suki told her. "Daddy had a rough night. We're going to let him be comfortable for a while."

Sokka looked over at Aang with a grin. "That one is my little Miss Manners," he explained. "She's kin to her Aunt Katara."

Once he'd had a good breakfast in him and had been crawled on by his children, Sokka found himself beginning to feel almost normal. He still kept looking for Suki and touching her whenever she passed by. He also couldn't resist touching his little ones and kept at least one of them in his lap, rotating them out whenever one got restless.

After a while, Aang went out to check on Appa and Katara declared that she was going to look in on Mai and Toph. The two older boys wanted to go see Blaze with Aang and Katara took Kodaso with her, leaving Suki and Sokka with Zutara and the twins.

It was Hasue's turn in Daddy's lap for the moment as Aiko amused himself by stacking blocks on the floor. Zutara then declared that she had to do something about Daddy's hair. "I don't like it," she stated firmly.

So she got the brush from the bathing room and proceeded to brush vigorously, as if she could brush out the offending white. Finally Sokka had to ask why she was working so hard on him. Suki had stepped into the kitchen to put away the breakfast dishes, but came back to the door just as Zutara passed her father the hand mirror from her bedroom.

Sokka looked in the mirror, running his hand over the white lock in his hair. His hand shook a little as he pulled the long white strands before his eyes. "Where did you get that, Daddy?" Zutara asked in an accusatory tone.

After a brief thoughtful pause, Sokka answered, "I guess it must be where the moon kissed me." And though his words were playful, his tone was serious, Suki realized.

"Well, I don't like it," Zutara declared, then continued to brush, but more gently now.

Suki felt a chill run through her as she watched. What had happened to him out there in the ocean? How had he survived? Who did she owe for bringing him back to her? How could she repay that debt?

Meanwhile, the waters around Kyoshi Island continued to toss and roll. Trade ships on their way to the harbor had to turn around and head back to the coast. Fishing boats either struggled back into port against the massive waves or simply headed off to safer harbor at Whaletail Island.

And far to the north in the Spirit Oasis of the Northern Water Tribe, the koi fish no longer circled each other but instead held themselves apart on opposite sides of the pond.

"Kyoshi Island is a really beautiful place," Mai was saying as she and Jet had breakfast together on the balcony of the guest house. "We should try to come here more often."

"Maybe for a second honeymoon," he offered suggestively as he spread jam across a piece of bread.

"What do you mean 'second'?" she asked wryly. "I don't recall ever getting a first."

"We went to Ba Sing Se," Jet replied with a teasing grin. "We even took a cruise."

"We rode the ferry across the lake," Mai retorted. "That does not count as a cruise. And that trip to Ba Sing Se was for an audience with the Emperor. It was not a honeymoon."

"So where do you want to go?" Jet asked. "I'll take you wherever the treasury will allow."

"How about Ember Island?" Mai asked. "It's a beautiful resort with beaches and parties and plenty of . . ." Her voice trailed off as she remembered her last trip to Ember Island with Zuko, Ty Lee, and Azula. It had turned out to be less than fun. Plus a trip to Ember Island would end up mostly state visit with all the Fire Nation aristocrats that would want to make points with the King of Omashu.

"On second thought, how about Tuzai Island? Zuko and Toph have a beautiful house there and they say the beaches are gorgeous," Mai offered instead. "It's peaceful and quiet and there's nobody there to impress."

"That sounds really nice," Jet had to agree.

Then Mai considered how long it would take them by caravan then by boat to get there. If they couldn't swing a ride with Aang or Zuko, it would take a month at least.

"Once upon a time, I promised you a trip to Whaletail Island," Jet teased. "We still have to go there."

Mai remembered that promise. It was back in the swamp when they were trying to con their way out of a bandit trap. He'd told the bandits she was his girlfriend and had spent a lot of time kissing her neck. It had been pretty exciting.

She looked across the table at her husband, catching the gleam in his emerald eyes. She knew what he was thinking. And thanks to his now-sharp earthbending skills, he had a pretty good idea of what might be going on in her head as well.

"True," Mai answered slowly as she got up from the table and made her way to Jet's seat. "But you know, we really ought to make the most of our time here as well. Now that Sokka has made it home safely, we can spend a few days relaxing. After all, until Aang and Katara are ready to head back to Omashu, we're kind of stuck here."

Then she ran a hand around the back of his neck and into his hair.

"I think a honeymoon is a really good idea," Jet suggested as he pulled her into his lap and proceeded to kiss her neck. "Let's have lots of them."

Mai couldn't agree more.

Aang and the boys met Zuko in the large barn where Blaze and Appa had bedded down for the night. Now the two giant animals were outside in the sunshine, both apparently resting. "Hey, buddy," Aang called to Appa.

Appa opened an eye and whuffed a friendly greeting, then went back to sleep.

"I think they both had a long day yesterday," Zuko commented as he worked. He had a brush and was tirelessly scrubbing down Blaze's scales, stripped down to undershirt and light trousers.

It was odd to Aang to consider the Fire Lord as a dragon groomer. "Do you do that at home as well?" Aang asked as he picked up a curry brush of his own and went to work on Appa's tangled fur.

"Of course," Zuko answered. "I serve him as I would the Firebending Masters. I belong to him—he does not belong to me."

Aang thought to himself that Fire Lord Ozai would never have stooped to manual labor—not even for a dragon. He would have hired a staff of workers to do it for him. As he watched Zuko work, he thought the change in attitude was a very good sign for the future and he said so aloud.

"It was losing its perspective that brought the Fire Nation to ruin," Zuko continued. "I will not have my son raised to believe that he is better than his people or than the dragons that bring their spirit to his nation."

Blaze lifted his head so that Zuko could work under his chin, then gave the Fire Lord a wet, rough lick on the face. Zuko and the two little boys watching mesmerized all laughed.

But for Aang, the exchange was bittersweet. He remembered how it had felt to see the sky full of dragons at little Rokiroh's birth. He remembered the look of awe and humility in Zuko's eyes as Blaze had chosen him.

Then with a sigh he remembered how it had looked above the Southern Air Temple when he was a little boy to see flights of skybison filling the air. What would happen to airbending when there were no more skybison?

He'd joked with Katara that they would repopulate the world with airbenders. But how could they when the spirit of airbending was encompassed in the skybison just like the spirit of firebending lay in the dragons and the spirit of earthbending lay in the badgermoles?

Then he thought of the koi fish at the Spirit Oasis. When Admiral Zhao had killed Tui, the moon spirit, all waterbending had ceased. Until Yue had given her life back to the little white fish and took her place as moon spirit, the moon itself had ceased to shine.

He buried his face a moment in Appa's soft fur. When Appa ceased to be, would all airbending cease as well? What would happen to the balance of the world? How could the four elements continue to exist in harmony if one were completely missing?

Aang looked down at Bumi as he brushed Appa's feet, his small hands barely able to grip the brush. He was not only this little boy's father, he was—as the only remaining airbender—his teacher as well. His son had a look of serious concentration on his face as he worked. He would have been a good companion for a skybison. But he would never get that chance.

Aang glanced over at Zuko and Blaze and a rare flash of resentment ran through him. The dragons had come back to the Fire Nation. Why couldn't the skybison come back to the airbenders?

Because there were no more skybison, he considered with a deep sigh. His Appa was the last one.

Appa must have sensed his mood and picked up his shaggy head to stare Aang straight in the eyes. Then he whuffed a great breath of warm air over him as if to say, I am here. We are together. Then he closed his eyes again and went back to sleep.

"I think they both overflew themselves yesterday," Zuko was saying with concern as he put down Blaze's brush and went to give Appa a rub on the head. "They need to rest up for the journey home."

"When were you planning to head back?" Aang asked, grateful for Zuko's concern for Appa.

"In a few days, I guess," Zuko answered. "I had some business to discuss with Sokka. That's why we came. Being here for all the drama was a kind of bonus—if you could call it that. What about you guys?"

"We might have to take Jet and Mai back to Omashu. When we got the message that Sokka was missing, they insisted on coming," said Aang as he went back to brushing Appa's long fur. "Otherwise, we'll be here until Katara and I are satisfied that Sokka is really okay."

"Does something make you think he isn't?" Zuko asked, worry in his voice.

"I'm not sure," Aang answered. "Something is definitely different about him. I'm just not sure exactly what it is."

Back inside the house, Suki had gone to the kitchen to begin preparations for lunch. Even though Sokka had eaten late, she felt sure everyone else would be ready for something soon. Besides, she'd never known her husband to turn down a meal.

To her surprise, instead of resting in the common room, he followed her to the kitchen and sat at the small table watching her. She wanted to send him back to his comfortable chair, but was so glad to have his presence with her that she didn't have the heart to do it.

Instead she walked up behind him and leaned her cheek into his hair, her arms around him. He was really there. He was solid and real and warm and present. "I thought I'd lost you," she whispered, and despite her best efforts to stay strong, she began to cry.

Then it was his turn to comfort her as he pulled her onto his lap. "I'm never going to leave you again," he said quietly. "I promise you that."

Suki heard the words and knew the intent behind them was sincere. But she also knew her husband was a fisherman and that the ocean was a part of him just as surely as if he'd been born a bender. He was Watertribe. She knew the call of the open sea would be too much for him to resist.

But even as she knew this, she kept back a little piece of hope that it could be true. That he could stay with her forever on dry land, and she'd never have to let him go. She'd never have to risk him again.

All the petty troubles they faced—the issues with the boats, with the shrimpcrab venture, with the tiny house, with living next to her parents—all these things had faded into insignificance in the light of real trouble.

All she knew was that he'd come home to her. That she had him in her arms again. But that loss she'd felt so keenly like a knife to her heart still clung to her, and she knew it would be a while before the pain and the fear faded. Until it did, she would hold him close. She would love him with everything she had.


	3. Chapter 3

_Chapter Three_

The Duke stood on the deck of the fishing vessel, frowning in dismay as basket after basket of dead shrimpcrab was hauled out of the hold. The pile on the dock was disturbingly large now, with little sign of reaching the bottom of the deadloss. As much as he wanted to see his captain alive and well, he did not want him to see this disaster.

Unfortunately, as the sixth basketful went over the side to the dock, Sokka strode up to the boat, Suki only a few steps behind. She'd known it was only a matter of time before her husband had to check on the boat. And sure enough, by the time Katara returned, he was dressed and ready to go out.

Suki didn't want him out of her sight, however, and enlisted her sister-in-law to watch the babies for her while she accompanied him to the harbor.

"What is going on here?" the watertribesman fairly roared as he took note of the ever-growing pile of dead crustaceans. "What happened to my catch?"

Suki gave the Duke a sympathetic look as Sokka bounded up the gangplank and on to the deck of the boat. The boat was a wreck with loose boards hanging everywhere and half its rail missing. It was a wonder they'd ridden out that storm at all, judging from the damage.

"Sokka, we sprang a leak in the holding tank during the storm," the Duke was saying. "We found it when we started unloading."

Sokka mumbled angrily under his breath, then lay down on his belly with his head hanging into the open hatch. The Duke crouched on the other side and practically hung upside down in order to point out the damaged place in the hull.

"We figure we lost half our water," the Duke explained. "If we'd unloaded earlier, it might not have been this bad. But as it was, we ended up going back out with a leaky holding tank. And honestly, until this morning no one even thought to check it."

"And why not?" Sokka demanded angrily. He pulled himself out of the hold and towered over the younger man, clearly furious. "There is nothing on this boat more important than that catch! This is a fishing boat. That catch is our livelihood! What were you thinking?"

The Duke rose and looked his captain right in the eye. "We were thinking about finding you, Sokka," he answered steadily. "When we got to the dock and you were missing, every man on this boat demanded that we go right back out and look for you. It was hopeless, but we still went."

"And do you know why?" the Duke continued. "Because you are a thousand times more important than this catch."

Suki watched as Sokka's anger dissolved and embarrassment took its place. With a sigh, he sat back on his heels and pressed his hands into his eyes wearily. Then he looked up at the Duke and said, "Thank you. Thank you for going to look for me. Thank you for getting my ship and my crew home safely."

The Duke looked at him for a moment, then reached down to give his friend a hand up. "Apology accepted." Then as the crewman in the hold handed up yet another basket of dead shrimpcrab, the Duke sighed.

Sokka reached down into the basket and pulled out a shrimpcrab, its shell a little smaller than his hand. He gazed down at it for a minute, frowning, then tossed it back onto the pile with a snort of disgust. Down in the hold, the rest of the catch was dying, both from lack of water and from the toxins released by the dead catch on top of it.

A mediocre season had just turned disastrous with a seriously damaged boat and a dead catch. What was the point in trying? Sokka wondered.

All his life, he'd struggled to be something more than he was. When the men had left to fight the Fire Nation, he'd tried to be a warrior. When he and Katara had discovered Aang in the iceberg, he'd tried to be a leader. When they'd finally reached the Fire Nation, he'd tried to be a swordsman.

And he'd come close. He'd come within shouting distance of the goal there in the bright shining conclusion of the war. But in the end, it had all slipped away. He was no warrior, no leader, no swordsman. He was just a fisherman with a dead catch and a broken boat and a load of debt he now had no way to repay.

He looked over at Suki standing on the dock, waiting for him. This boat was supposed to be their ticket to a grand future—the first of its kind. It incorporated all kinds of innovations and features, like the Fire Nation engine and the holding tank system to keep the catch alive. It was going to open up Southern Watertribe fishing to new levels.

Northern Watertribe boats were big sailing vessels, each staffed with a waterbender to keep the catch frozen and fresh until it reached market. Southern Watertribe boats were small and bound to the coasts for fast runs to port due to the serious shortage of benders in the tribe.

Sokka had wanted to create a boat that could handle the longer trips out but wouldn't be dependent on bending skills to keep the catch fresh. And he'd done it. This boat could have been the first in a fleet that would bring his people back to prosperity. That would have brought his family to a place of security.

But now his innovative tank design had failed and all his big plans were failing with it.

Suddenly he was angry. Angry at the sea for doing this to his boat, angry at the Duke for not offloading earlier, angry at himself for falling overboard and causing the delay. He was angry at life for upsetting the cabbage cart—again.

For what felt like the hundredth time he was back at square one. This time with a wife and four children to support.

"You all right, Sokka?" the Duke asked, putting one hand on his arm.

Sokka shook himself and replied, "Yeah. Never better."

"I know it looks bad," the Duke continued reasonably, "but you're alive. We all thought you were gone for sure. I've never been so happy to see somebody in my life than when you walked in that door."

Sokka looked at the young man, noticing that his eyes had gone a little misty.

"We'll get through this," the Duke stated firmly. "After all, we're Watertribe."

"Technically, you're Mudtribe—half earth, half water," Sokka teased.

"So that makes your kids Mudtribe too," the Duke smarted back with a grin, glad to see Sokka's mood lighten.

"Nope, my kids are Beachtribe—where earth and water meet," Sokka answered. "That's why we live on Kyoshi. Nice beaches." Then he looked down into the hold again, but the sight of his failing catch made him sick at his stomach. "Just do what you can."

Then Sokka looked the Duke straight in the eyes and said it again, "Thanks."

"No problem," the Duke answered. Then he asked the question he'd been wanting to ask. "How did you get home anyway?"

Sokka looked at him, his brow wrinkled in thought. "No idea," he finally answered with a shrug as he headed down the gangplank.

Back at home, Suki tried to get her husband to relax. She knew Jet was planning a big dinner for everybody—entertaining was definitely his strong suit—but Sokka was too keyed up to be good company.

Ever since they'd gotten back from the boat, he'd been distracted and anxious. She could only imagine what was running through his mind.

"Come on in here and take a good bath," she encouraged. "The kids are down for a nap, and we've got a while before dinner." Then she kissed his cheek and said, "Besides, you still taste salty."

Soon, Sokka lay soaking in the tub, trying to relax. But it was no use. He was certainly worried about the boat and the catch, but the thing bothering him most was the Duke's question. How had he gotten home? What had happened to him?

Ever since he'd woken up, he'd avoided thinking about what had happened to him. He'd just enjoyed being alive and not dead. He ought to be dead.

Now he couldn't quit wondering about it. Why was he still alive? What had happened to him?

The last thing he remembered was falling overboard. He remembered struggling in the water and finally going under. Then it all went blank. He had the vaguest recollection of walking and of water. His next real memory was of opening the door of his house to see all his friends gathered there.

He tried to turn loose of it, to let the memory come back in its own time. Relax, he kept saying to himself. But lying in the hot water of the tub, he didn't feel relaxed. He felt claustrophobic. He felt like he was being pressed on all sides by walls of water, walls he couldn't budge.

He shook himself and tried to wash his hair. He kept telling himself he was fine. He was home. But he kept feeling the water against him, pressing him, dragging him down.

And when he ducked beneath the surface to rinse, the touch of the water on his face was suddenly terrifying. He remembered the feel of the water in his lungs, drowning him. He remembered knowing without a doubt that he was going to die.

Suddenly, he panicked. The water was closing in on him. He was suffocating. He had to get out. He had to breathe. He stood up with a start of anxiety, throwing his hands out away from him in a defensive posture.

With a sudden rush every bit of water left the tub. Not splashed out into the floor, Sokka realized. Just out of the tub. He was completely dry. Even his hair was dry. The tub was dry.

Meanwhile, the water hung suspended in air, bobbing around him in globes large and small.

"Sokka, are you okay in there?" came Suki's call through the door.

Her voice broke the spell and an entire tubful of water fell to the floor of the bathing room with a splash. But even then, Sokka stayed miraculously dry.

"What on earth is going on?" he heard her call out as water ran out into the bedroom. She opened the door to see him standing there in the tub, shaking. "What happened, sweetie?"

"I don't know," he answered as he nearly fell into her arms. She helped him across the wet floor as he shook with nervousness and uncertainty. She sat him on the edge of the bed and knelt beside him with her arms around him protectively.

Then he looked up at her, his blue eyes wide. "Suki, what happened to me?" he asked fearfully. "What's going on?"

"I don't know, Sokka," it was her turn to answer. And the lock of white hair drifted through her hands as she held him.


	4. Chapter 4

Chapter Four

Katara returned to the house to find her brother sitting in his chair again. He was dressed for dinner, his hair tied back by its customary blue leather thong, the odd white streak standing out against his otherwise black tresses. But despite his carefully groomed appearance, he seemed distracted, barely even glancing at her as she entered the room.

Aiko and Hasue played on the floor at his feet with Zutara carefully watching over them. Sokka, however, was not really paying attention. His eyes were focused on the door that led to the bedrooms where Katara could see Suki moving back and forth.

She put Kodaso on the floor beside his cousins and went to see if Suki needed help. She was surprised to see a large puddle of water easily crossing half of the bedroom floor. Suki was busily spreading towels and wringing them out into a large dishpan.

"Let me help you with that," Katara offered gently and with a single sweeping gesture, bended the water off everything and into a large floating globe of blue.

In the common room, Suki could hear Sokka's intake of breath and then heard the front door open and close again. She rose from her knees and headed out to follow him.

She nearly ran into her husband as she dashed outside. He had stopped only a few steps from the front door, blinking up into the sunshine.

"I did that same thing," Sokka said as she reached him. "That water in the tub. I did just what Katara did. It looked exactly the same, only in reverse."

He took her hand in his, gripping it tightly, and walked to where Aang and Zuko stood before the huge water troughs that had been filled for Blaze and Appa the night before. One was still nearly full and Sokka half reached out to it. Then he stopped and turned to Suki.

"I am not a bender," he said firmly. "When I was a little boy, the tribal elders tested me, hoping to find another bending warrior to fight the Fire Nation. I couldn't move so much as a snowflake."

"But I just did what Katara did. How is that possible?" he asked.

He closed his eyes and half reached toward the water trough again, then snatched his hand back as if burned.

"I can feel the water, Suki. Not just see it. I can feel it deep inside me. I can tell without looking how much there is and what it's doing," he said, and awe colored his voice.

Then with his eyes closed, both his hands now gripping hers, he took a deep breath. Suki watched in shock as the water rose up from the trough. No gestures, no techniques, no forms. She saw the water rise up and flow in a slow circle around them, weaving up and down as it ran. Then the circle became a wall, and it spun faster and faster through the air until they were surrounded by a spinning globe of blue.

The air became colder and colder inside the globe until the crystals began to freeze and fall on her eyelashes and her hair as snow. Then the entire globe slowed and turned pale blue, then white as it solidified into a solid mass of ice that enclosed them.

The air inside was still and the light was muted and dim. Huge flakes of snow continued to waft down on them from above.

"How, Suki?" he whispered in confusion, leaning his forehead to hers. "How can I do this?" The sound of his voice had an oddly muffled quality in the dome, and the ground began to grow white beneath her feet.

"How?" he repeated softly.

Finally, he relaxed his grip on hers enough to allow her to reach up to his face, then to the white lock of hair that had begun to fall free of its leather tie.

She ran the long soft strands through her fingers and suggested softly, "I think you were kissed by the moon."

Suki watched as her husband's eyes widened in memory. Then the globe of ice shattered around them with the tinkle of breaking glass.

Toph had gone in search of Zuko when she met Mai and Jet on the path to Sokka's house.

"Have you guys seen Zuko?" she asked.

"Nope," Jet answered, Mai's hand tucked in his arm. "We haven't seen anybody."

"We're on our honeymoon," Mai explained straightforwardly.

"Sounds good to me," Toph replied with a grin. "Maybe Zuko and I will take another honeymoon as well."

"This island is a beautiful place for one," Jet suggested merrily as they continued down the winding lane that followed the harbor below. "We're in no hurry to get back at all."

"I thought you guys were in the middle of some big trade thing," Toph ventured. "Zuko said Aang was presiding."

"The crazy old men can handle it without us for a while," Mai stated firmly. "I didn't see anything on the agenda that Jet really needed to approve."

Toph nodded. She understood completely how their partnership worked. When it came to Earth Kingdom business, Toph frequently checked into Zuko's agenda as well, giving her input.

Interestingly enough, Toph had gone from Earth Kingdom to Fire Nation in her loyalties, while Mai had gone from Fire Nation to Earth Kingdom—specifically Omashu. It all came down to balance, she decided.

Aang and Katara balanced air and water; Sokka and Suki balanced water and earth; Jet and Mai and she and Zuko both balanced earth and fire. And they all balanced male and female.

But as they rounded the corner into the large open square where Appa and Blaze were housed, Toph could tell that something was seriously out of balance.

Sokka and Suki knelt in the center of what appeared to be a pile of ice. Zuko and Aang stood at a little distance with Bumi and Toma. With her enhanced abilities to see the earth in people, she could easily read their expressions as dumbstuck.

"What's up, guys?" Jet asked innocently as they arrived on the scene.

"You've got me," Aang managed, his eyes never leaving Sokka and Suki. "I think we'll have to ask Sokka."

But right that moment, Sokka was in no shape to answer any questions. Memory had begun to flood back with Suki's touch there in the dome of ice.

He had been kissed by the moon.

It was his own fault, he decided. He'd asked her to watch over his family. He'd called out to her.

And she'd heard him.

But instead of watching over his family, she'd watched over him.

As the water had closed in on him, filling his lungs and dragging him down to the seafloor, Yue had come to him.

The light of the moon had shone through the dark water upon him as he descended, but it did not grow dimmer. It grew brighter. All around him the water turned brilliant with light as Yue came to him.

She was so beautiful, luminous and glowing, her hair whiter than he remembered, her face more lovely. He couldn't take his eyes off her.

She was not the same girl he'd met in the Northern Watertribe city. That girl had become something so much more. It wasn't that she looked older—in fact she looked ageless. It wasn't that she was unfamiliar—in fact he felt like he'd always known her.

But she was utterly different, and he struggled to find the word to capture the change in her. At last it came to him.

Transcendent—that was the word he was looking for. She was transcendently beautiful, the expression in her eyes was transcendently gentle. She transcended this world and all its struggle and worry. Yue now belonged to something timeless, something unchanging. She was a part of the spirit world now.

She bent close to him, her hair floating out around her like a halo around the moon, and he was filled with awe. Then she spoke to him and her voice was like music.

"Sokka, what have you gotten yourself into now?" she teased. But even her teasing sounded like a symphony.

He couldn't speak for the water in his lungs, but drowning hadn't seemed nearly as important as it had just a few seconds before.

"Have you come to take me with you?" he couldn't say, but thought instead.

She shook her head sadly and answered, "No, Sokka, I can't take you with me. You don't belong there."

He felt a little bit of panic at that. Then where exactly would he be going after death?

"You aren't going to die either," she said with a tinkle of merry laughter. "I won't let you. Not like this."

And she moved even closer to him.

To say she kissed him was an understatement. He felt the sensation of her lips against his, but more than that he felt her connect with him, spirit to spirit. He could feel her, all of her essence, inside of him. He was overcome by her presence, by her generosity, by her love.

She reached deep inside of him and she marked him.

Then something flowed into him—a power he could not resist. The light that had been brilliant around her now became blinding and he closed his eyes against it.

But he could not shut it out. The light poured around him and into him and through him, coursing through his veins and down his nerves.

And it felt indescribably wonderful. Waves of complete physical and emotional pleasure poured through his system. It felt as if a dam had broken inside him and unleashed a flood of joy. He actually cried out loud at its peak.

Then he realized that he'd cried out.

Underwater.

But his lungs were no longer filled. The ocean no longer pressed against him.

He and Yue stood on the seabed with a globe of fresh, pure air surrounding them. The water was still there—he could feel it. But he could also choose to keep it at bay.

Yue's light had grown dim, faded out like the crescent moon.

"I won't let you die today, Sokka," she said again with a soft smile as she began to fade. "I will always love you." And she reached up to run her fingers through his hair, just to one side of his forehead. As she did, the strands fell away from her fingertips white as moonlight.

Then she was gone.

And he stood alone on the floor of the ocean.

It was dark. Utterly black. The ocean surrounded him, dark and brooding. One misstep, one slip of concentration and it would overtake him. He knew this.

So he began to walk.

It had been exhausting beyond measure.

He tried to think clearly, but the power that had run through him still held him in a daze and he was vaguely aware that something in his head wasn't quite registering.

As if in a dream, he walked across the uneven rocky bottom all night, then all day as the water lightened overhead in the sunshine.

In the corner of his vision he could see fish darting past his dome of air, but he couldn't spare a thought for them. His concentration had to remain unbroken or the ocean would consume him.

Then it grew dark again as he still struggled uphill.

Toward the end, staggering out of the surf onto the beach of Kyoshi Island, it was as if the ocean made one last effort to take him back. Wave after wave crashed against him, slamming him against the rocky coral, then the stony beach.

But the water could heal as well as hurt, and with every slash of coral into his back and chest, he felt the lingering spray knit the wounds, almost without his willing it to do so.

When he'd finally arrived in the town, all his reserves depleted, he'd been past conscious thought for hours, running purely on instinct. He'd crossed the courtyard, barely aware of the moon in the sky, barely aware of the glow that surrounded him.

Then he'd seen the light in his window.

And he'd opened his own front door and allowed everything that had happened to him to just fall away.

Now, it had all come back to him.

He knelt on his hands and knees in the snow he'd created with the powers Yue had given him. His hair hung down before his eyes and he could see the lock of white. He remembered the feel of her touch as her fingers ran through it. He remembered everything.

Suki knelt with him. His wife, the mother of his children, knelt with him on the snow, snow white as the moon.

"What happened, Sokka?" she asked gently. "What happened to you out there?"

He tried to make the words come. He tried to find some way to tell her that Yue had given him something, that she'd touched him in her transcendent way. That something in him now belonged to the spirit of the moon.

But how could he say that? How could he tell her that not all of him was hers any longer? Because as surely as he knelt there on the snow in the middle of summer, Yue had laid claim on a part of him that he had not been able to hold back.

He wanted to reassure Suki that he was okay. That nothing had changed. That he was the same person who'd left her only days ago to go fishing.

But he knew that was a lie. He was not the same. He had been kissed by the moon.


	5. Chapter 5

Chapter Five

Toph reached Zuko's side, concern evident on her face. She could tell that Sokka was deeply shaken. Something was very very wrong with him, but just what was so wrong, her earth vision simply could not see.

Zuko put his arm around her as they watched Sokka finally stand up and help Suki to her feet. Then with a half gesture, Sokka swept the ice and snow up off the ground, transforming it effortlessly into liquid form again, and deposited it neatly into the water trough.

Katara met them there in the courtyard, her eyes wide with astonishment. "I saw that, Sokka," she stated. "What was that?"

"Bending," he stated distantly. "I am apparently now a bender."

He looked down at Suki. There was question in her eyes, but he just shook his head slightly. He owed her his first explanation, but he couldn't do it, not yet.

Then he looked at all his friends gathered around him. The looks on their faces ranged from surprised to amazed. Not really much of a range, he thought to himself.

Then Toma came running up to him, his own expression one of fear and doubt. "Daddy?" he asked, unsure of what he'd just witnessed.

Sokka swept the little boy up into his arms. "Hey, little wolftail," he greeted him. "Are you hungry? I think Uncle Jet invited us all over to eat with him and Aunt Mai."

Then Sokka looked over at Jet and Mai and asked, "We still on for dinner?"

"Sure," Jet replied, taking Sokka's cue that what they'd all witnessed was no big deal—or at least not a topic for immediate conversation. "Big beachside barbecue. Everybody's invited."

"Sounds great," Sokka declared. "I'm starving." Then he put Toma on the ground again and walked Suki to the house. He picked up little Aiko, gave him a toss in the air to make him squeal with delight, then passed him to Suki. Then he picked up Hasue and kissed her on the belly until she laughed merrily.

"Come on, my Zu-girl," he said to Zutara, aware that his daughter was giving him a seriously suspicious look. He kept grinning at her, and at last she took his outstretched hand and the family headed out.

The entire group converged on the beach that faced out into the open ocean. The waves rolled in thunderously.

"Is it always this rough out here?" Mai asked.

"It's usually much calmer than this," Suki replied. "Maybe there's a storm moving in."

Sokka looked up at the sky and stated, "I don't think so. The storm that pounded us moved back out to sea. We should have pretty good weather for a while."

Aang gave him a curious look. "How do you know if the weather is going to be bad?"

"Fisherman's eye," Sokka answered with a sly grin. "Too many years on the water."

"Then how did you get caught in that storm the other night?" Katara teased. "Was your fisherman's eye closed?"

"Nope," Sokka answered as he helped Suki spread out a huge blanket for the babies to play on. "I knew it was coming. I just ignored it."

Suki gave him a hard look at that but didn't say anything. Katara said it for her, "Why on earth did you do that? You were almost killed!"

"Hey, the boat's still floating. I just caught an unlucky break," Sokka replied evenly.

"I think it was more of a lucky break since you're still here," Jet stated.

In the awkward silence that followed, Zuko spoke up. "Ever do any surfing out here?" he asked as he gazed out over the rolling waters.

"Sure," Sokka answered and within moments, Zuko, Mai, and Aang were ready to head out into the surf.

The waves came in across the beach at varying heights, the lowest being about three feet and the tallest rolling in at around seven or eight feet.

"Come on, Jet," Mai was cajoling her husband. "It's not that hard. You'll love it."

Jet eyed the water with suspicion.

"You do swim, don't you?" she asked, suddenly aware that she'd never seen him swim. The palace in Omashu didn't have a pool. That would have to be remedied soon, she decided.

"Of course," Jet answered. After all, he'd spent plenty of time swimming in rivers and lakes in his years as a freedom-fighting juvenile delinquent.

Then he looked back out over the crashing waves. This was his first trip to the beach. It was unnerving to see that much water, and very unnerving to see the white capped waves cresting over his head.

Zuko on the other hand was psyched. He hadn't been surfing since his and Toph's last trip to Tuzai Island. He and the island's governor, his friend Yung, had found a place near the now-quiet volcano where the waves sometimes crested at over ten feet. He was glad Toph didn't realize just how big the water got around there. He felt certain she wouldn't approve of his risking his neck for thrills.

Down the beach, a group of young Kyoshi Islanders headed in for the day. As the group approached, one tall redhaired young man stopped next to Zuko.

"You guys going out?" he asked, tossing the damp curls out of his eyes. "It's pretty wild out there today. It's like Ocean's got it in for us, you know what I mean?"

Zuko nodded in understanding, "I know what you're talking about."

"Cool," the young man replied with a nod of his own and slipped an arm around the waist of the darkhaired girl that stood beside him. Then the group headed back up the beach.

"What was that all about?" Aang asked as he took a board from the rack.

"I think it was a warning," Zuko answered. "The waves are pretty intense today. We might ought to stick to the easier breaks."

Jet nodded, hiding his nervousness with a grin.

Out in the water, Mai held out her hand to him. "Come on," she said with a smile. "You'll love it."

Sokka watched from the beach blanket as Jet grabbed a board from the rack and headed out into the water. Zuko and Mai spent a few minutes instructing him and the trio paddled out into the waves.

Aang meanwhile caught one of the larger rollers as it came in and deftly rode the curl nearly all the way to the beach. Then with a wink at Katara, he bended the wave back into shape and rode it back out to the lineup off shore.

"Hey, no fair," shouted Mai as she rode past him on the way ashore.

Zuko just laughed, but Jet couldn't spare a glance at the avatar for attempting to keep his balance on the board beneath his feet.

The king of Omashu was doing pretty well for a first-timer in Sokka's opinion. But he really wasn't watching the surfers. The ocean took all his attention.

Sokka had spent his entire life on the water. He was watertribe. But he'd never been able to feel the water the way he did now. He wondered how Katara managed to laugh and talk and smile with Toph and Suki there beside the children and their sandcastles. How did she do anything but feel the water, he wondered.

Because that was all he could do.

As the waves moved in and out, they pulled at him insistently. He closed his eyes but he could still feel the current as it moved past the beach, drawing at his consciousness, his body—his spirit itself.

There was so much water. It took up all the room in his awareness. It was all he could see, all he could hear, all he could feel.

The afternoon wore on until the sun lay low on the horizon. Somehow Sokka had managed to make the right responses to the questions he was asked. Somehow he managed to act as if he were present with the group. But in reality he was far away. All his concentration lay in the ocean before him as it tripped up to the beach, then led out into the cool depths of the shoals.

He glanced over at Toph with her feet in the sand and at Zuko as he gazed up at the descending red globe of the sun as it filtered through the low lying clouds, and he finally understood how they felt.

He'd watched bending before. He'd thought he understood it. Grab an element, move it around a little, slam a few bad guys.

But there was so much more, he realized. The water was more than an element to be moved. He was connected to it now. It was like a missing part of him had been restored.

As the sun sank below the hill, Zuko sighed and turned back to the group. Everyone was gathered around the bonfire while Jet oversaw the arrival of tables full of food.

Everyone was gathered around the fire but Sokka.

The tall, broadshouldered watertribesman stood on the beach away from the others, the light of the setting sun fading away behind him as he faced the glow of the rising moon.

It would be a beautiful night, Zuko realized. The moon was full and bright and the sky was so clear overhead that the stars were beginning to shine steadily upon them.

"Time to eat!" Jet called to the group. Zuko looked back to see everyone begin to gather around, mothers feeding hungry children first. Toph had Rokiroh on one hip as Aang dished up food into the plate she held out to him. He turned to go help her, but a movement out of the corner of his eye stopped him.

Sokka had walked out into the edge of the surf so that the water surged around his feet, then his knees.

"Hey, Sokka!" Zuko called to him. "Come grab something to eat."

But Sokka didn't answer. He just stood there in the water, gazing up at the rising moon.

If the water had pulled on Sokka's spirit before, once the moon rose in all its glory, the pull was multiplied it seemed a hundred-fold. He could feel every ounce of water before him. He could sense the schools of little fish that darted back and forth within it. The strands of kelpweed on the ocean floor interrupted the flow of the current as they swayed in its grip.

The ocean held him as well, but more than that Sokka found himself transfixed by the moon.

It was so beautiful, so luminous, so transcendent. Its power poured into him and over him and at that moment, he felt as if he could move the entire ocean with a thought.

With barely an effort, he pushed the water beneath his feet until he stood on the surface, now as solid as earth beneath him. Then he strode off into the harbor, casually flattening the breakers as they rolled up to him.

Out there all was silent but for the roar of the waves crashing against the beach behind him. The wind whispered past, blowing his hair into his face. He pulled it free of the leather band that held it and dropped the blue cord into the water at his feet. It floated a moment, then began to sink.

Evening began to descend fully around him and the moon glimmered on the dark water, its glow making a lighted path to it across the waves.

He could almost see Yue there in the moon's shining surface, her hair streaming out around her like a halo. He could almost hear her voice.

"Sokka?" a voice called to him, but it was not Yue. Aang circled close to him on a globe of air. "Are you okay?"

Sokka looked back to the beach. He had no idea he'd walked so far out into the harbor. The rest of the group stood there at the shore, watching. Their faces were distant and pale in the moonlight. Suki held Aiko in her arms and Zutara clung to her side. His wife looked frightened. Why was Suki frightened? Sokka wondered.

"Hey," Aang said again, his globe floating on the water, "you okay?"

"Yeah, sure," Sokka managed to reply. "Why?"

"Well, you are just standing on the water out here a hundred yards from shore. It's a little unexpected," came Aang's gentle answer. "I tried to do it myself, but I don't have that kind of waterbending ability."

Sokka grinned a little at that. "You just haven't tried," he countered.

"Come on back to shore," Aang suggested in a kindly voice.

"Okay," Sokka replied and headed in.

As they approached the beach, Sokka's smooth path toward the moon gave way behind him to the rolling ocean and the waves crashed against the beach with renewed strength.

"It's getting pretty rough out there," Sokka commented as they walked back along the sand to the others.

Aang nodded, then turned back as he caught a movement in the harbor out of the corner of his eye. A rogue wave headed to shore, growing as the swell of water ran upon the shallow shelf of the beach. He called to Katara and set a water bending stance, the tattoos on his forehead and arms beginning to glow in the onset of the avatar state.

The wave grew rapidly to over thirty feet, tall enough to engulf everyone on the beach and a good number of houses set close to the shoreline. Then the wave suddenly stopped moving. The top curl turned frosty and white. The wind blew across it, carrying a cloud of snowflakes onto the beach. The tsunami itself had become a solid block of ice.

Aang looked at Katara, but she stood there as confused as he was. Then he noticed Sokka as he stood there, one hand stretched out toward the wave. Another gust of wind blew even more snow from the top. The children began to squeal with delight as the huge flakes danced around them.

With a grin, Sokka pulled even more snow from the frozen tsunami until the beach lay covered in a glistening coat of white, the green branches of the orangepalm trees weighed down by an unexpected touch of winter.

Then he dismissed the wave.

Aang could only watch in amazement as Sokka simply gestured at the wave and dismissed it back to the deep.

"What is going on with you?" Katara fairly yelled at her brother, unable to contain her frustrated curiosity any longer. "What do you think you are doing?"

"Bending," he answered simply, then turned to take Hasue from Jet's arms. "I'm tired," he said to Suki. "Let's go home."

Suki gave him an unfathomable look and nodded. Then she called to Zutara and Toma, but they were enthralled with the snow as they rolled in it with Bumi.

"We'll bring them home in a little while," Aang offered. He figured maybe Sokka and Suki had some things to discuss. He knew he had a lot of questions for his watertribe brother-in-law, but from the look in Sokka's eyes, he didn't think he'd get too many answers right then.

Sokka took Suki's hand as they walked back to their house. They put the two babies to bed. Hasue had fallen asleep on his shoulder as they walked, and Aiko was yawning heavily. It had been a big afternoon for them, he thought. They ought to be exhausted.

Then he walked Suki into their bedroom and shut the door. She still had snowflakes in her hair, he realized as he kissed her.

"What are you doing?" she asked between kisses. "What is going on with you?"

"I have no idea," Sokka declared as he pulled on the knot of her belt. It slipped free in his fingers and he ran his hand into her tunic, feeling the warm softness of her skin.

He held her close to him and breathed in the scent of her hair. She always smelled like jasminclover.

But as the snowflakes melted, all he could smell was the ocean. As he stood there in the moonlight filtering through the window, he could still feel the pull of the ocean. He knew the waves had grown even rougher since they left the beach. The tide was coming in, answering the call of the moon, the first waterbender.

The moon called to him as well, pulling on him like the water of the sea.

Yue, he almost said aloud.

Then he felt Suki's hands run beneath his tunic and over his chest and he remembered the woman in his arms. She was real. This was his wife. This was no spirit.

He needed to touch her, to anchor himself to her. He had to push the moonlight out of his head.

He kissed her again and as she pressed closer, he could feel need rising inside him like the rising tide. He kissed her and clung to her, pulling at her clothing and his own until he lay beside her, his skin pressed against hers. Outside, the waves moved onto the beach and inside other waves moved around him and through him and the tide continued to rise.

As Suki's hands pulled him closer to her, he tried to be with her entirely. He wanted his entire spirit to be present with his wife, with the woman who'd loved him and stood by him no matter what.

But as waves of physical pleasure began to roll through him, memory rolled through him as well. Yue's gift had felt so incredible. The water chakra lay fully open inside him and pleasure coursed through his system.

Wave after wave of pleasure surged through his body in perfect time with the breaking of the waves of water now hammering the deserted beach. The moon was full and heavy overhead, the tide cresting against the breakwater of the harbor. The boats at anchor strained against the chains that held them and he could feel it all.

At last the crashing waves of pleasure broke inside him as well and he fell exhausted beside the woman who loved him, the woman who'd given him this incredible gift of herself.

"I love you so much," he whispered to her. "Thank you."

Suki lay there next to him, stroking his shoulder, his back, his hair, deep in thought. Finally she asked the question that burned inside her. "Sokka, what happened to you out there?"

There was silence for a moment, then he breathed a single word.

"Yue."

She waited for elaboration, but it did not come. He had fallen asleep.


	6. Chapter 6

Chapter 6

Yue had happened to him.

Was that the best he could do? Suki wondered to herself. She'd been grief stricken at his loss, then elated by his return, then frightened by his new waterbending abilities, now she found herself just plain angry at his explanation.

Yue.

That was all he had to say.

She tried to be understanding. She tried to be patient. She thought she'd worked through any latent jealousy of Sokka's long lost love years ago when they were teenagers.

After all Yue was now out of his life permanently. What could a spirit have to do with him now?

Apparently plenty, she thought wryly.

But with a glance through her bedroom window she could see the edge of the moon there in the sky, its light filtering through the glass.

So, Yue had happened to him. But Suki had news for Yue. He was in her arms and her bed. He was the father of her children.

Carefully, the Kyoshi Warrior slipped free of her Sokka's embrace and walked to the window. "I am his wife. I happened to him first," she whispered into the sky. Then she pulled the curtain.

Far away in the pool of the Spirit Oasis of the Northern Water Tribe, the little white koi fish gave a switch of her tail as the black fish with the blaze of white on its head simply stared at her, its gills pumping water intently.

"It's not right," Katara declared firmly as they settled Bumi and Kodaso into the trundle bed of the guest room at Sokka's parents' house. Suki's mother Shei had settled Zutara and Toma into bed in her room. All agreed that Sokka and Suki needed some time alone.

"What's not right?" Aang asked curiously, even though he had some idea what his wife might be thinking.

"It's not right that Sokka should suddenly have this fabulous bending ability," Katara declared. "I have worked all my life to be the best waterbender I could be. Now he comes along and does these amazing, incredible things without a second's training. He just woke up one morning a master bender. It's not right."

Aang gave her a little smile and put his arm around her shoulder. "Jealous?" he asked.

"Of course I'm jealous," Katara replied. "Who wouldn't be? Aren't you?"

"Not really," came Aang's answer. "That kind of ability comes with a hefty price tag."

Katara looked at Aang seriously, her jealousy giving way to concern for her brother's well-being. "What kind of price tag?"

"I don't know," the avatar answered. "Only time will tell."

Katara looked down at their two boys in the bed, Kodaso now cuddling the stuffed sky bison that had been Bumi's favorite toy. Neither of their children had a room to truly call their own. They had various guest quarters in the major capitals, but no place that was truly theirs. They were always on the move, heading from one obligation to another.

She put her arms around her husband and kissed him in understanding. "Being avatar has a price tag as well, doesn't it, Aang?" she asked quietly.

Aang pressed his forehead to hers and replied, "I can take whatever the spirits dish out as long as I have you beside me."

She kissed him again, then Bumi asked for a glass of water.

"It's not right," Mai was saying to Jet as she brushed her hair before bed.

"What's not right?" Jet asked, unable to take his eyes off her.

"Sokka being a waterbender now. After all these years," she stated firmly. "If you aren't born a bender, you don't become a bender as an adult. You just don't."

"I did," Jet replied.

Mai gave him a firm look. "Jet, you were born with bending abilities. You just didn't use them."

"But I'm still not very good. Toph has pretty much given up on me," he replied.

Mai looked at him again. He truly didn't think he was much of a bender, she realized. For all his abilities and talents, for all his position as King of Omashu, deep inside Jet still felt like a kid on the run, like he was going to be found out at any moment.

She crawled into bed next to him and ran her hand into his hair. "You," she began firmly, "are only one of two earthbenders in the entire world who can hear the voice of the earth. You are the King of Omashu, selected from all earthbenders as the one to guide the city that was founded by the original earthbenders."

Then she looked him squarely in in his dark green eyes and declared, "I think that makes you pretty hot stuff." Then she kissed him, delighting in the way he kissed her back.

Some time later, she lay there with her head on his shoulder, his fingers intertwined in hers, and picked up the conversation where they left off. "It's still not right that Sokka should be able to waterbend now as an adult."

Jet looked down at her and replied, "I think you're jealous."

"Of course I'm jealous," she answered. "All my life, I've wondered what it would be like to firebend. Azula made my childhood a living hell trying to force me to use my abilities-which I do not have, trust me."

"I know what you mean," Jet agreed. "At the back of my mind I always wondered what kind of bender I could have been if I'd had the training." Mai nodded silently. "But are you going to let it eat at you or are you going to be happy where you are and who you are?"

Mai thought for a moment about her life. She might not be a firebender, but she was far happier than she'd ever been, happier than she ever thought she could be. And she owed so much of that to Jet, her husband, her partner, her lover, her friend.

Plus, he was gorgeous. He was the one. She was incredibly happy and she told him so.

The smile that lit his face at her declaration was fire enough for her, she decided.

Meanwhile, Zuko stood before the fire in the apartment he shared with Toph and stared into it with a slight frown.

"What's the matter, Sparky?" she asked as she came out of Rokiroh's room where the little boy had finally settled into sleep.

"It's not right," Zuko stated firmly.

"What's not right?" Toph asked curiously as she took a seat on the low sofa before the fire.

"That Sokka should have all that ability and not a shred of technique or discipline," Zuko answered.  
"Bending without technique is dangerous."

Toph looked at her husband before the fire in the way only she could, taking in the serious expression on his face and the way the muscles in his hand and arm tensed up, as if he were working through bending forms in his head.

Zuko practiced firebending forms constantly, both in full training session and in his mind. Any time he had a problem to work through, he began running through the basic forms mentally as a kind of focusing device. She could see it in his musculature as tiny movements invisible to the eye, but visible to her.

"What's he going to do if it gets away from him?" Toph teased. "Bend all the water out of the ocean?"

Zuko turned to her, concern evident on his face. "You didn't see it, sweetie," he reminded her gently. "You couldn't see the way that wave just froze there. That kind of power without discipline is dangerous. I know it."

Toph frowned herself at that. She knew how hard Zuko worked to control the fire within him. He was always so careful to keep his emotions in check, to make certain his decisions were sound and his policies were well-considered.

But when he worked out in the mornings in the light of the rising sun, he let it all go. Places in the exercise yard at the palace in the Fire Nation capital were slicks of molten rock where the full force of his abilities were allowed free reign.

That kind of power was terrifying, she thought to herself. An uncontrolled Zuko would be a force of nature indeed.

And it had been unnerving to look out across the invisibility of the water to see Sokka just standing there suspended over the ocean floor.

Toph went over to the fire to stand next to her husband. She ran her hand down his arm, catching his hand in hers and bringing it to her lips. "Then you show him," she suggested. "Work with him. Teach him the technique he needs."

Finally, Zuko began to relax enough to sit beside her on the sofa.

"It's nice not to have official duties to attend to, isn't it?" she asked him after a few minutes of quiet.

"I guess," he answered absently.

"But you are still thinking about that shipping complex, aren't you?" she teased.

"I'm sorry," he replied apologetically.

"You need to think about something else for a while," she declared, then pushed him back onto the sofa with a mischievous grin. "You need to think about me."

And the fire burned a little hotter in the fireplace as Zuko lost part of his self control.

Deep in the ocean, a spirit stirred.

It wasn't right.

The spirit of Ocean rose from the depths and gazed up at the moon so far away in the sky.

It wasn't right.

The spirit of Ocean entered the body of the black koi fish and gazed across the pond at the white fish so far away.

It wasn't right.

The spirit of Ocean appeared in the spirit world in the coral palace he'd once shared with Tui, the moon spirit.

It wasn't right.

Ocean sighed and walked through the house of coral, room after empty room, finally ending in his bedroom. It too was empty.

Tui was gone. Had been gone for years.

But this house had lain empty most of the time even when she was alive.

Thoughts of Tui were bittersweet to him. The moon had held him, certainly. He'd been at its mercy for millenia. At times she had angered him with her mercurial nature, quick to love then just as quick to turn away from him.

And she'd taken lovers.

He'd understood that even as he'd resented it—after all, she was beautiful, the most beautiful of all the spirits.

But despite the ever changing nature of the moon, Ocean had remained constant. He'd never strayed from her side. Neither in the spirit world, nor in the spirit oasis, nor in the depths of the ocean as he looked up into the sky to see her overhead, to feel her touch.

Her death had been unthinkable. His anger toward the human who had killed her had been boundless. He'd destroyed him without regret.

And his grief had been overwhelming.

But Tui had left someone to take her place-Yue, so young, so human still.

After the initial shock of losing his partner, he'd resolved to make the best of the new situation.

He'd been patient with her. He'd gone out of his way to be kind. He'd given her time to become used to the world she now inhabited. He was patient by nature. After all, he'd endured millenia of waiting for Tui, patiently circling as she pulled him close to her, then pushed him away.

But Yue had only circled, keeping her distance from him, first out of fear, then out of shyness. But over the years, he'd watched her grow from fearful human girl to true moon spirit. He'd seen her embrace her power and her place.

But with a sweetness that Tui did not have. Yue cared about the natural world and its people. She watched over them in a way he found endearing. His layers of cynicism and disconnection had been softened by her earnestness and innocence.

He'd found himself growing younger, his own interest in the natural world increasing. So much had changed since he'd bothered to be interested last. A great war had divided the nations. An entire people were gone—at least it was so believed.

But balance was coming back to the world in a new way with a new avatar.

And as he looked toward Yue—in the spirit oasis, in the sky above him—he could see the possibility of a new balance between Ocean and Moon. And each time Moon pulled the waters of Ocean closer, Ocean began to reach out to Yue as well and thought she'd begun to draw a little nearer to him as well. He'd caught her gazing at him from the sky, across the koi pond. He'd hoped to show her the palace of coral, a place she might make her home.

But now she'd pulled completely away. She had turned her face firmly to the natural world. The moon still rode the heavens. It still pulled the ocean in and out with the tide.

But Yue no longer looked at him. All her attention lay with the human she'd marked for her own.

He thought of the man and anger and jealousy surged through him. The ocean of the natural world reflected his dark mood and waves tossed boats and broke through levees. After a while, anger gave way to weariness, a weariness as old as the earth itself.

Yue was just like Tui. Inconstant, ever changing in her affections. His curse was that he would be true to her, even as she turned from him.

And though spirits do not tire as humans do, Ocean lay down in the large empty bed and slept at last, his dark hair cast across the pillow, marked by its own streak of white.

And on the beaches of Kyoshi Island, the waves at last began to calm.


	7. Chapter 7

_AUTHOR'S NOTE: I hate my life! I hate not being able to write like I want to! I swear I am doing my best to ignore things like work and family drama in favor of writing. But it sure is hard. Meanwhile, thank you to everybody who's reading and reviewing. Please keep it up!_

Chapter Seven

The next morning, the group gathered again in the courtyard where Zuko and Aang carefully brushed and tended to Blaze and Appa.

"Sugar, we need a big animal to ride, too," Jet declared to Mai as he lounged on a bench beside her, his legs stretched out languidly before him, one arm draped across her shoulders.

"I could probably find us some lizards," Mai answered.

"Or maybe Bo or Hu could fix us up with some tree geckos," Jet countered.

Toph snorted at him from her seat on a beautifully earthbended settee. "Earthbenders are bound to badger moles," she corrected him firmly. "If you need a big animal, I'd suggest you go visit them in the Cave of Two Lovers."

Zuko stopped washing Blaze's front leg and looked at her quizzically, "Cave of Two Lovers?"

"One of the most sacred places in the Earth Kingdom," Toph answered. "A secret pathway through the mountain to Omashu. Few know of its existence and even fewer know how to find it," she finished smugly. "You should make the trip a priority, Jet."

"I've been there already," Jet said with a shrug and a grin at Toph's look of surprise. "I didn't see any badger moles. But I did meet a group of traveling musical nomads. That's how I got to Omashu after the war. I guided them through the cave."

Aang looked up from brushing Appa and laughed. "That was an interesting place indeed. Do you still have to find your way through in the dark?" he asked.

"Not any more. Somebody put up signs that say, 'Exit this way,'" Jet answered.

"There's no fun in that," Toph declared firmly, then she turned back to Jet. "But just the same, you really need to pay the badger moles a visit. They are the original earthbenders like the dragons are the original firebenders."

"And like the sky bison are the original airbenders," Aang added, giving Appa a pet on the head.

"Who are the original waterbenders?" Mai asked curiously.

"The two koi fish in the Northern Water Tribe Spirit Oasis," Zuko answered.

Aang shook his head. "Not exactly. The original waterbender was Tui, the moon spirit. She and La, the ocean spirit, took up residence in the Spirit Oasis in the form of the koi fish as a link to the natural world."

"Why?" asked Mai curiously.

"The spirit world and the natural world run sort of parallel with each other," Aang explained. "What happens in one effects the other. Having a presence in both worlds and in the center of the Northern Watertribe gave benders more access to the power of the Moon for bending."

"So the fish are an extension of the spirits," Zuko surmised, wiping the damp hair away from his forehead. "That explains what happened when General Zhao killed the white moon fish."

Aang and Katara nodded in agreement, leaving Mai and Jet looking confused. "What happened?" Mai asked curiously.

"When Tui was killed," Aang began sadly, "the moon itself went dark and the waterbenders lost all their power. Then Yue gave her life back to the koi fish, and she took Tui's place as moon spirit."

Katara looked up from where she knelt next to the playing babies and sat back on her heels, deep in thought. "The other night when Sokka went missing, the moon went dark for a moment, and I lost my bending ability. Aang, what do you think happened?"

"Only Sokka knows," Aang answered, giving Appa another good rub on the head and a fresh supply of oatbarley grass to eat. "And I'm not sure if he's ready to tell us yet."

Suki came out of the house then, Zutara at her side. "Has anybody seen Sokka this morning?" she asked. "He left early to go check on the boat and hasn't come back yet." It was evident to all that she'd grown anxious for him.

"I'll take a look around at the dock," Jet offered. "Since I don't have a large earthbending animal to tend to."

"We could go find a grizzlywolverine," Mai suggested as she rose to go with him. "They can't earthbend, but they pack a mean punch."

Jet laughed and rubbed the back of his head at that. "I'll pass on that one," he declared firmly.

The two walked down the dock hand in hand, teasing each other until they reached Sokka's fishing vessel. It lay quiet in its berth at the harbor. Sokka was nowhere to be seen, so they decided to take a walk down to the beach and check out the surf. Jet had to agree with Mai that surfing had been an exhilarating and addictive experience. He couldn't wait to get out there again.

As they turned the last bend in the path that led to the beach, a most unexpected sight met their eyes.

Before them lay a huge castle on the sand, glistening like crystal in the morning sun.

Mai walked closer, her eyes barely able to take in the sight before her. This was not a sand castle. This was an ice castle. It shone in the sunlight like diamond.

And it was huge—at least as large as the governor's mansion on the island, if not larger.

They approached the beautiful entryway, climbing a set of steps to the front door, which stood partially open. She walked toward the door, mesmerized by the detail in the carving and the size of it. Then she pushed at it with her hand to see if it actually moved.

To her surprise, not only did it swing freely on its hinges, it felt funny as well.

It wasn't cold.

Cool, maybe, she decided, but like stone or iron. Not like ice at all.

Jet followed her through the doorway and Mai could hear his intake of breath as they entered the main hallway. The ceiling was translucent blue and glowed from the sunshine outside. A clear crystal chandelier hung down from the ceiling, the sunlight dancing through it as if through a thousand tiny skylights, sending shimmers of light around the room.

"That took a long time," Sokka's voice sounded behind them, echoing a little off the walls. "But I think it was well worth the effort."

Mai walked forward to touch the bannister of the curving staircase that led to the second floor. Again, it felt smooth and solid beneath her hand, but not cold. "How?" was all she could manage to ask.

"Well, I just started playing around this morning and got the idea to build Suki a house," Sokka answered. "I'm working on the kitchen now, making furniture."

"It's beautiful," Jet said behind her. "But won't it melt?"

"I don't think so," Sokka replied. "But we won't know for sure for a couple of years probably."

At Jet's look of disbelief, Mai grabbed his hand and placed it onto the handrail next to hers. She watched her husband take in the nature of the ice Sokka had created, then heard him echo her earlier question. "How?"

Sokka reached out one hand to the wall beside him, stroking it gently like a sculptor. Mai watched as a chair rail appeared on the wall as his fingers passed. "I like these," Sokka commented. "Zuko has them in the dining room of the fire palace."

"How did you make this, Sokka?" Jet managed to ask again. "How did you create ice that doesn't melt?"

"Well," Sokka began, "I just started playing with some ice early this morning. Making little models of things. Then I just kept experimenting with pressure and temperature until I came up with a way to make the water lock into ice crystals but without freezing it."

Mai and Jet could only look around them in amazement.

"Probably any bender could do it given enough time and practice," Sokka added dismissively.

"I don't think so, Sokka," Mai whispered. "I think this is one of a kind."

Within minutes, the rest of the group had found them and all stood around in varying stages of amazement, admiration, disbelief, and horror.

To Sokka's surprise, Suki hadn't fallen in love with it like he'd wanted. Instead, she wandered around the rooms, the look on her face more kin to fear than joy.

But it was Katara's reaction that puzzled him more than anything.

She was horrified. In fact, she wouldn't even go in. "This isn't right, Aang," was all she would say as she stood with her husband before the door. "It doesn't feel right. I can tell it's water but I can't bend it. It's like it's been locked away from me."

Sokka tried to reassure her that it was water still, just different. But she would not set foot inside.

After a short walkthrough holding Zuko's hand tightly, Toph joined Katara outside. "That was weird," was her evaluation. "It felt like stone beneath my feet but was completely invisible. It was like when Sokka walked on the ocean. Only I was the one suspended in space this time." Toph shivered at the memory. "Weird."

"Not weird," Katara stated firmly. "Wrong."

After a while, Aang joined them outside. "That was different," he declared. "I never felt water like that."

"I couldn't bend it, Aang," Katara declared, her voice shaking. "How can he do this? How can he change water that way?"

"I don't know," the avatar replied with a sigh as he watched the sunlight shimmer off the roof of Sokka's not-quite-ice palace. "I wish I did. But I have to agree with you. It's not right."

Within the walls of a palace of red coral, Ocean had felt the bending powers of Yue's human and it had felt like the squeal of fingernails down slate. What had she done? What had she created when she'd given part of herself to him?

The element he governed was so vast and benders so few that he rarely felt any hint of activity from the human world. The last time he'd felt benders working was when the Fire Nation had attacked the Northern Water Tribe. The concerted bending of so many warriors had roused his interest and brought him near the natural world even before Tui's life had been taken.

He'd been close enough to their plane that he'd seen and felt her death in multiple dimensions—in the koi pond, in the spirit world, and in the water itself. He'd lost the other half of himself in that moment and had felt it in every way possible.

But likewise when Yue's life had poured into the koi fish and into the moon and into the spirit world, she had also poured into his life. He'd felt her keenly, all her fear and her innocence, all her bravery and her generosity.

In the aftermath of his fury against the Fire Nation, he'd withdrawn from the new moon spirit—partially out of grief, partially out of courtesy. And though Yue had taken up residence in Tui's place in the koi fish and in the spirit world, he'd not visited her in the ivory tower of the moon.

Now, Ocean found himself barging into that same ivory tower uninvited and unannounced.

She sat on a low settee, gazing out the nearby window. As he entered the room, she turned to face him, her lovely face surprised and a little alarmed at his entrance.

"This is an unexpected pleasure, La," she said and the soft melody of her voice ran over him like silk. "What brings you to my house?"

He had not been inside the tower in many years. She had changed things, he realized, made it her own.

"Come. Sit." Yue beckoned to him with a smile.

Ocean shook his head. "I am not here on a social visit, Moon."

"Then why are you here?"

He looked at her standing there, so beautiful, her expression so welcoming, and he could not find the words.

Then the human bender she had created twisted more of his element out of balance and the feel of it sickened him. He grew dizzy and reached out a hand to the back of a chair to steady himself.

Yue ran to him. When her hand touched his arm, a shock ran through him and he grabbed her wrist.

"Tui had lovers. I knew that," he hissed angrily. "But she never . . ." He wasn't quite sure how to go on. Then another spasm wracked him. "What did you do?" he gasped. "What kind of power did you give this human?"

His grip on her wrist tightened even more as another wave of sickness ran through him and she cried out in pain. Somehow Ocean forced his fingers to relax but did not let go as he looked up at her.

Yue's eyes were wide with fear now. "I had hoped you were different from her. But I was wrong. You and Tui are just alike." He let go of her and forced himself to straighten despite the sickness and the pain. "Two faces of the unfaithful Moon."

Ocean glared at her, doing his best to ignore the tears welling in her blue eyes, eyes as blue as the sea in summer. "This must end, Yue," he declared. "And if you do not end it, I will."

Then as suddenly as he arrived, he was gone.


	8. Chapter 8

Chapter Eight

Yue watched Ocean leave with a mixture of relief and regret, along with a measure of confusion.

"Good riddance," came a languid voice from the sofa. "He's always been the jealous type." A lovely green hand reached out to pick up the delicate stemware that sat on the nearby table, and Lian Shen, the swamp spirit, leaned forward out of hiding to take a sip of her drink.

Yue rubbed at her wrist and walked back across the room to take a seat with her friend.

"What is he talking about?" Yue asked.

"Which part, darling?" Lian Shen responded with an amused laugh.

"About the unfaithful moon," Yue answered. "I haven't been unfaithful."

"No, of course not," her willowy green friend replied. "You've done nothing wrong at all. He's just overly sensitive. Ocean always was the jealous type."

Yue sat there for a moment and considered Lian Shen's words. Had she done anything wrong? Had saving Sokka's life been wrong?

Absolutely not.

"And after all," Lian Shen continued, "what kind of claim does La think he can make on you? You didn't choose this life. You didn't choose him."

Yue had to agree to that. When she'd given her lifeforce to the little white koi fish, she thought she would die. She expected to pass into the next world, not the spirit world. It had been very unexpected to find herself embodying the moon. And even more unexpected to realize that she was now the consort of the Ocean.

Yue looked around at the beautiful tower of ivory moonstone that was now her home in the spirit world. It was lovely and filled with things that delighted her and reflected her nature and her interests—nature and interests that were far removed from the Watertribe girl she had been.

She knew she'd changed there. Her perspectives had changed dramatically. From her vantage point in the moon she could see the natural world from a distance that both removed her from it and gave her a far deeper appreciation of the scope of life itself. She could see the stars around her and the land beneath her and all of the human activity on a grand scale.

But far more of the planet's surface was covered by water than earth. And unlike the land, the water was effected by her very presence in ways that made her feel powerful. She had to admit the sea fascinated her even as her tides pulled it closer in great waves of motion-like she was bending at last.

She thought for a moment about the spirit of Ocean. She had been a little afraid of him when she first came, but he had always treated her with such polite kindness and reserve that she'd grown comfortable in his presence. He understood the spirit world completely and had helped her learn her place there in a kind but businesslike manner.

At first, he'd appeared to her in the spirit world in the form of a man of perhaps her father's age. But the more time she spent around him, the younger he'd seemed to grow.

Now he seemed to her like a handsome man in his thirties, and the perpetual sadness that had always seemed to mark him had begun to ease a little. He smiled more easily when he spoke to her and had even laughed a time or two at something she said.

And whatever Lian Shen said about him, Yue admired him. He was knowledgeable and respected in the Spirit World. But now he was angry with her.

Lian Shen watched as her young friend Yue frowned. It was odd to see such an expression on her lovely face. Yue had settled in so well with the rest of the spirits and was usually a very content person.

"What is it?" Lian Shen asked. "How has that old bore put you out of temper?"

"He's angry with me," Yue replied, unconsciously rubbing her wrist where Ocean's fingers had left their mark. "And I have no idea why saving Sokka's life should make him so angry."

Lian Shen sighed at that. She'd seen enough of Tui's push and pull on La over the millenia that she knew quite well why he was angry. But La had known Yue long enough now to realize she was not Tui. Just like Mountain, Ocean was just being possessive and overly sensitive in Lian Shen's opinion. It would be good for him, she decided, to twist in the wind a little.

"I agree completely," Lian Shen said. "It's not as if you started anything with this human. You were simply doing him a kindness."

"True," Yue agreed. Then she blushed a little. Lian Shen noticed immediately.

"Unless, of course, your kindness has extended further than you've admitted, Yue," Lian Shen teased. "Who is this Sokka to you?"

Lian Shen listened in amusement as her friend finally told the entire story of her relationship with the human Watertribesman whom she had now blessed with uncanny bending abilities. The swamp spirit's amber eyes widened as Yue admitted having looked in on Sokka many times over the years, including very recently indeed.

"But all I can do is watch him," Yue sighed. "I see him with his wife and his children, Lian Shen. I see her have the life with him I wanted. A life I'll never have." And tears welled up in those cerulean blue eyes.

Lian Shen thought privately that Yue was only setting herself up for heartbreak if she continued down this particular emotional path. Then again, Lian Shen's own little dallies with human men had been a source of entertainment and pleasure for years. And a way to make Mountain appreciate her attention when she chose to give it to him, she thought with a smile. Perhaps Yue could use the same kind of diversions.

And it would be nice to see Ocean squirm as well. Lian Shen had hoped that after Tui's death, he would have been a little more appreciative himself of her attentions and had offered to console him in his time of grief, but he'd turned her down cold. No man rejected Lian Shen's favors and got away with it.

"Yue," she began in her sweetest voice, "what if I told you that there was a way for you to be with Sokka?" At Yue's scandalized look, she continued, "Just to talk to him, to visit with him—nothing more than that of course."

"I could talk to him?" Yue's voice was full of hope and excitement.

"Let me show you a little trick I know that involves dreams," Lian Shen replied smoothly.

That night Sokka lay in bed with Suki, back in their old house. After all his work on the ice castle she wouldn't stay the night in it.

"We need to bring in some soft furnishings," she'd told him with a kiss on the cheek. "I think it is beautiful, Sokka. I really do. But give me a day or two to find the right kind of bedding and cushions to match such a grand place."

He'd offered to just go get the mattress from the bed but she talked him out of it, declaring that the children needed time to settle in as well.

In the end, he'd given in and gone back home with her, disappointed and a little hurt. Nobody had seemed to really like the new place. He'd discovered a whole new kind of waterbending and nobody seemed to like it at all.

Jet and Mai were the only ones who seemed even half-way appreciative. Katara was downright hostile and Aang was distant. Toph said she felt like she was walking on invisible stone and Zuko just kept frowning and shaking his head.

Even Zutara had been whiny and uncooperative when he tried to coax her inside. At least Toma ran the halls like a wild ponyrabbit.

He rolled over again and closed his eyes once more to try to sleep. After several minutes, he could tell from Suki's even breathing that she had finally drifted off. The rest of the house was dark and silent with only a little glow from the window as the moon rose overhead.

At last he slept as well.

And then he dreamed.

He dreamed that he sat with Yue in a beautiful white room. The walls and the floor glowed as if they were infused with moonlight. And Yue was just as transcendent as she'd been when she'd come to him during the storm.

"I've missed you so much, Sokka," Yue said in a melodic voice. "You don't know how many times I've looked in on you and wished I could tell you how much I missed you."

"I missed you too," Sokka replied. "But I always felt like you were looking out for me."

"I was," Yue answered sincerely. "Always." She moved closer to him on the silvery gray sofa, and he reached out and put his arm around her shoulder because it seemed like a friendly thing to do. Besides, it's just a dream, he thought to himself.

"How do you like the gift I gave you?" she asked, snuggling into his side. Her hair drifted around her face and onto his neck. It felt like gossamer, like spidermoth silk. And she smelled so wonderful. Had he ever smelled in a dream before?

"I love it," he answered. "It's incredible. It's like everything I ever thought bending would be like but so much more, Yue." And he told her about his house he'd built.

"I want to see it," she stated and stood up, taking him by the hand.

"Okay," he answered, wondering if his dream would take them there or if he would suddenly find himself dreaming that he stood on the streets of Omashu wearing a dress or in some other equally disturbing nightmare.

To his surprise and delight, he found himself standing hand in hand with Yue in the halls of his ice castle on the beach. The moonlight shone through the windows and down the chandelier he'd bended so carefully.

"It's wonderful!" Yue was suitably appreciative and breathless in her compliments as he took her from room to room. "You made this?" she asked as they stood in the doorway of the master bedroom. She ran her fingers over the carved posts of the bed. "I think it is incredible."

"And it's all because of you," Sokka stated. "Thank you so much for giving me not only my life, but my bending."

Yue looked up at him and smiled. "You are welcome, Sokka." Then she reached up and ran her fingers through the strands of white that stood in such contrast to the rest of his dark hair. "It was my gift to you. My chance to protect you."

"I am so sorry I didn't protect you in the Spirit Oasis," Sokka murmured. "I played it over and over in my head how I could have stopped Zhao, how I could have saved you."

"But if you had saved me then, how could I have saved you now?" she asked gently. "It's the way it was supposed to be."

Sokka stood there a moment, entranced by her loveliness, her transcendence. He wasn't sure what to do next. Then she pulled his head down to her and gave him a soft kiss on the cheek. "You sleep now, Sokka. We will meet again," she whispered.

And the dream shifted out of the ice castle and into more familiar dreamscapes. If he whispered her name in his sleep, no one knew, least of all himself.

Yue opened her eyes in her tower of moonlight and smiled at Lian Shen. "It was so easy," she said in relief. "And it was so nice to be able to just talk to him. To sit with him and touch him."

"I am glad," Lian Shen replied, giving her hand a pat. "You can visit like this any time you want—any time Sokka is asleep, that is."

Yue then frowned again. "What is it now, darling?" Lian Shen asked, getting a little exasperated.

"But Ocean is still so angry with me. I don't want him to be angry," Yue answered, her voice a little nervous.

Lian Shen stood, shaking out her skirts and sweeping back her dark auburn hair with an elegant green hand. "Then give Ocean what he wants as well. He's jealous. Give him some of your attention," she instructed.

Yue looked even more anxious at that. Ocean had never made any kind of overtures to her that he wanted her attention and she admitted such to Lian Shen.

"Ocean may be a spirit," Lian Shen stated firmly, "but he's still a man. And he wants you, trust me." She couldn't keep the bitterness out of her voice as she said it, but Lian Shen had to admit it. She'd seen it on Ocean's face from her vantage point in the back of the room. The old fool was in love with the young fool. But his love for her had certainly done him good. Ocean was looking younger and far more attractive than he'd been in years.

Yue still looked nervous. "Go see him. Go offer to make up to him," Lian Shen suggested. "You might even enjoy it."

Yue just shook her head. "No, Lian Shen. Ocean is not interested in me."

"Do whatever you want then," Lian Shen stated breezily. "You are the one who has to put up with him. If you want him to keep thinking you are unfaithful to him, just let him be. I'm sure he'll come to his own conclusions without your help."

Yue frowned again. Maybe Lian Shen was right. Maybe she needed to just go to Ocean and talk to him, let him know there was no reason to be upset about her saving a friend's life. "Maybe I should go talk to him," she concluded.

"Of course you should," Lian Shen affirmed. "And then he'll not be angry with you. And he won't go trying to put an end to your new young man. Remember the story of Tui and Ahsan."

Yue's frown deepened. The Ballad of Tui and Ahsan was an old Watertribe legend that told of Tui's love for a young sailor named Ahsan and how La had become jealous and drowned him in a storm. Yue had always thought it just a sad story, but now she was curious.

"Did it really happen the way the legend is told?" she asked Lian Shen. "Did La really drown Ahsan?"

Lian Shen shrugged. "Ocean has always claimed innocence, but Tui was convinced he did. She was angry with him for years," the swamp spirit stated. Of course, she thought, La did have reason to be jealous. Ahsan wasn't Tui's only human lover over the centuries.

But Yue was worried now. Whether or not the story of Tui and Ahsan was true, Ocean had threatened Sokka. "What can I do, Lian Shen? I don't want Ocean to kill Sokka just because I was kind to him," she cried.

"Then go convince Ocean that he has nothing to fear from this human man. Go make sure Ocean knows his place is secure," Lian Shen instructed as turned to the door. "I think you know what you must do."

Then Lian Shen was gone back to her flower-filled bower, leaving Yue alone to think.

Had she done wrong in saving Sokka?

Absolutely not.

Was it any of Ocean's business who she chose to befriend?

No, she told herself.

Was she doing anything inappropriate by just talking to Sokka?

No, she told herself again, shaking off the memory of his arm around her.

But could she actually do what Lian Shen suggested? Was Ocean truly interested in having her as his consort in anything but an official way? Was she interested in being such?

Then she remembered how it felt to see Sokka with his wife, how it hurt to know that no matter how often they met in dreams, she would never truly be with him. She would never have the life she'd wanted of a home and a family.

And she grew angry. She hadn't chosen this life.

Now she belonged to Ocean. But he belonged to her as well, and perhaps it was time she began to take what belonged to her.

_AUTHOR'S NOTE: In case you didn't read _Voice of the Earth_, Lian Shen is the spirit of the swamp outside Omashu where Aang, Katara, and Sokka got lost in Season One where Aang kept seeing visions of Toph and the swamp kept playing tricks on Katara and Sokka. She's a beautiful green busybody who developed a serious crush on Zuko and threatened to kill Toph if she didn't find a new king for Omashu—which turned out to be Jet. At the end of their stay in the swamp, Aang told Lian Shen she needed to get out more and that she should pay a visit to Yue, the new moon spirit. And don't we wish he hadn't! I love Lian Shen! She's so bad!_


	9. Chapter 9

Chapter Nine

Suki couldn't remember the last time she'd seen Sokka sleep this late. Every time she'd tried to rouse him, he'd simply roll over and say, "I just want to dream a little longer."

Finally, she'd resorted to sending the children in. Their activity was a guaranteed wake-up call.

Zutara and Toma leaped onto the bed with a vengeance, inciting groans then laughter from the sleepy Sokka. After much tickling and bouncing, Sokka finally managed to pull the two children into headlocks. "All right, you two, settle down," he exclaimed with a laugh.

He rose and dressed as the children sat on the end of the bed, still giggling.

"Show us another trick, Daddy," Toma asked excitedly.

"All right," Sokka agreed, then looked around for water to bend. The water pitcher was empty, but the window stood open, letting a warm, damp breeze into the room. He closed his eyes and felt around him. Sure enough, the air was humid, heavy with coming rain.

With a wave, he pulled enough water out of the air and into his hand to make a small globe about the size of a child's fist. He sent the little globe sailing around their heads, then bounced it off Toma's forehead. Toma giggled and rubbed his skin, but he wasn't a bit wet.

Then Sokka took the globe and fashioned it into a crown of unmelting ice which he placed on Zutara's dark hair. "For my princess," he declared and gave her a polite mock bow.

Zutara pulled the crown off her head to examine it more carefully, then placed it back on her head with a smile.

"What about me, Daddy?" Toma asked bouncing on his rear end in excitement.

"Hop up," Sokka said, helping the boy to stand on the end of the bed. "Now jump to me."

Toma jumped off the bed toward his father, but instead of catching him in his arms, somehow Sokka managed to hold Toma in mid-air, suspended above the floor. Then with a gesture he tumbled him end over end, dropping him playfully back onto the mattress.

"That was cool!" Toma cried. "Do it again!"

After three more jumps, Sokka asked, "Zutara, do you want a turn?"

Zutara looked up at him, then with a serious look asked, "How do you do that, Daddy?"

"Bending, sweetheart," came his reply. "I'm just bending the water in him. There's a lot of water inside us."

"Can you show me how to bend?" she asked. "Can you show me how to do it too?"

Sokka thought for a minute. "I don't think so. I never learned how from a teacher. I remember watching your Aunt Katara practicing when she was a little girl, but I don't remember what she did." He tried to emulate one of the basic forms, but he felt silly. "You should probably go talk to her, sweetheart."

Zutara nodded then took off her crown, placing it carefully on the dressing table. "I don't want it to get messed up," she explained. Then she headed out the door.

For some reason, Sokka felt like he'd let her down. It made him uncomfortable. Then Suki came into the room and his discomfort increased. For some reason, he felt like he'd let her down too, but he had no idea why—just the vague notion that he'd dreamed it somehow.

"Good morning, honeycakes," he said to her, giving her a slightly guilty kiss.

But before she could respond, Toma started in with, "Show Mama what you can do, Daddy!" and he leaped out at him. Sokka caught him easily with only a wave of his hand and plopped him on the bed.

"That's enough for now, son," he instructed firmly, aware that Suki's eyes had widened at his display of ability.

He ignored the question in her eyes and went to the bathing room to wash up, all the time feeling uneasy, as if he was doing something wrong.

Then as he gazed into the mirror, his newly white lock of hair caught his eye and he remembered his dream. He'd dreamed about Yue. The details were fuzzy, but he remembered how much she'd liked his castle. He remembered the smell of her hair.

Strange, he'd never smelled in a dream before.

He shook himself and finished dressing. In the kitchen, he threw together something to eat for breakfast since Suki had fed the children hours before and had already cleaned up. Then he asked her if she wanted to walk down to the boat with him. "I've got to check on repairs with the Duke," he explained.

"Are you sure you want to go out again, Sokka?" she asked. "I wish you'd just leave the fishing to the Duke and the crew this time."

"It's my boat, Suki. My crew. My responsibility. I can't just ask them to go without me," he replied. But seeing the look in her eyes, he reached out for her hand. "I know you don't want me to leave. But I'll be fine. I'm a super master waterbender now," he declared with a grin. "How can water hurt me?"

Suki let him pull her close. "I'm afraid it will find a way somehow," she whispered against his chest as he held her. "I can't lose you again."

They walked together with Toma and the two babies, Zutara having cornered Katara in the courtyard for a lesson.

"Water is life," Katara was saying. "Waterbenders cherish and protect life. That's why we are healers."

Zutara listened spellbound. "There's water in all living things, including us," Katara continued.

"That's how Daddy did it," Zutara interrupted. "That's how he picked Toma up and turned him over."

Sokka and Suki approached as Katara looked at him with suspicion. "What did you do to Toma?" she asked.

"Just a little bending fun," Sokka replied casually.

"He picked me up and floated me and flipped me over," Toma added excitedly. "Show her, Daddy!"

"No, Toma," Katara declared firmly. "I don't need to see it." Then she turned to Sokka. "That's blood bending, Sokka. Don't you remember Hama?"

"Who is Hama?" Zutara asked curiously. Toma also perked up as well.

"She was a mean old lady who did mean things," Sokka declared defensively. "I'm not doing anything mean."

"But it is blood bending all the same," Katara responded firmly, fixing him with a serious look. "Waterbenders cherish life and waterbending comes out of a place of peace and enjoyment."

"'Out of pleasure in helping others and furthering life,'" Sokka quoted. He turned to Suki and explained, "We found this waterbending scroll—well, actually Katara stole it from a bunch of pirates-"

But before he could keep telling the story, Katara interrupted, "No matter where it came from, Sokka, this is basic waterbending instruction that perhaps you need."

"I know Bending Master Penpahg D'ahn's words as well as you do. You used to read it out loud every night when we were kids trying to memorize it," he declared with a laugh.

"You might know the words, Sokka," Katara replied seriously, "but you need to work on understanding what it really means now. Bloodbending is not a path that cherishes life."

"I'm not Hama," Sokka said, growing a little piqued at her narrowmindedness. "You got nothing to worry about here. I'm not up to anything unnatural."

Katara just gave him one of her looks, as Sokka kissed Zutara on the head. Then he made sure his little girl was listening as he said, "Your aunt knows how to waterbend, girlie girl. Pay attention to what she tells you and work hard and you'll become a great bender too."

Then he and Suki headed off toward the harbor. Behind him he could hear Katara sigh, then she continued, "Like I was saying, waterbending comes out of pleasure in helping others and cherishing life. Hurting others blocks your ability to bend."

"Didn't stop Hama from bending," Sokka muttered under his breath as they walked away.

At the harbor, Sokka was pleased to see that repairs were coming along, but when the Duke asked about a return trip, he just said, "Let's get the rest of this work done, then we'll talk about it."

Then he headed toward the beach to try one more time to talk Suki into a move into his ice castle. To his surprise, the tide had come in far deeper than he'd expected, washing the foundation out from under the huge construction and leaving it partially collapsed.

"That's strange," he said after a few moments of examination. "This is the only place where the tide came in this far. Strange."

Suki shivered a little, then said, "I'm so sorry, Sokka. After all your work on it."

"No big deal," he replied, waving the entire building back into water again with only a gesture. "It can be rebuilt. Bigger and better next time."

Suki stood there and watched the water flow back into the ocean and shivered again. "But not today, okay? Let's let the ocean have it back today."

"Sure, honey," Sokka replied, putting his arm around her shoulders. "Another day." She leaned close to him, and he could smell the jasminclover in her hair. But he couldn't help remembering the smell of moonlight.

Far to the south, the sea rolled in huge breakers as tall as a three story building. Warm currents met cool currents over uneven depths, compounded by a strong wind from the east where the southernmost tip of the Earth Kingdom approached the shores of the icy continent of the Southern Watertribe. The passage there was always dangerous and this time of year it was especially treacherous.

The wind blew continually over the water as the waves crested and fell covered in white foam and breaking heavily hundreds of miles from shore.

Air, water, heat, earth-all combined in this place to create seas that surged and fell mightily, the weight of a crashing wave enough to crush any boat that attempted to navigate through.

And as if one area of chaos and imbalance was not enough, thousands of miles away in the heat of the equator, warmer tropical water also reacted to the sun and the wind, spiraling up towers of evaporation that rolled through the atmosphere as clouds, then storms, then gales, then hurricanes of wind and rain—air and water, driven by heat and directed by earth.

Balance. It was all a matter of balance. Keeping balance between the great forces of the elements. Ocean concentrated on feeling the flow and the movement between the elements at work, always working to maintain balance.

Balance didn't necessarily mean calm water and temperate nights either. Sometimes balance could only be achieved by allowing the waves to roar and the winds to howl. Sometimes balance was violent and deadly.

But balance was necessary to the health of the world and its inhabitants. It was necessary to the health of the spirits who served its caretakers.

The seas of the world were a vital component of balance and as such required Ocean's attention and guidance. He knew every inch of the thousands of miles of deep water. He knew every centimeter of the inland rivers and lakes as well since all water eventually came from and returned to the ocean.

At last, balance was achieved in both the heavy seas of the south and in the great storm of the tropics, and Ocean headed at last to his retreat in the spirit world, his great palace of red coral.

As soon as he entered, he knew he was not alone.

Her presence permeated the place just as Tui's had done so long ago—in the days when they were happy together.

The very walls seemed to glow with an inner light that said the Moon had come. Huge rooms of collected treasures and memorabilia from centuries of living that normally lay dark and silent now sparkled with renewed life.

He entered the central hall of the coral palace and saw her standing before the large doors that led to the terrace and courtyards. The very air seemed to shimmer around her where she stood, as if she herself was moonlight.

"Once, many centuries ago, we held a huge ball in this room," he found himself saying. "The entire spirit world attended. Even the Avatar came."

Yue turned at the sound of his voice as it echoed through the large room. He took a few steps toward her and continued, "The orchestra was right there, just to the side of where you are standing now."

He closed his eyes and for a moment, he could hear the music, could see the banks of flowers that had adorned the room. He could see the guests—spirits of air and mountain, field and starlight. It had been a very happy time.

Then he opened his eyes and the room was empty again, empty as it had been for far too many years. Except she was here now.

"What brings you to my house, Yue?" he asked quietly.

Yue looked at the man before her. He was not some abstract concept of Ocean but a living, breathing person. And he seemed tired.

For the first time, she really looked at him, not with the eyes of a scared girl in a new world, but with the eyes of a grown woman in her own right. She walked toward him, her silvery white gown flowing down the smooth red steps as she approached him.

His shoulders were broad and strong, and he stood several inches taller as she looked up into his face. When she'd first come to the spirit world, Ocean had seemed very old to her, but now she realized that what she'd seen before as age before had now tempered to experience. He'd seen so many things, had lived so long. But his face did not seem old now, simply mature.

And handsome. She'd never realized just how handsome he was—not in the smooth way of youth, not in the way of the young men of her memories. In fact, he was far more attractive than her fiancée Hahn had ever been and in her youth, she'd thought Hahn a very good-looking boy indeed.

That was it, she realized. Hahn had been just a boy. Sokka had been just a boy.

Ocean was a man.

And he looked tired, so tired. His eyes were the dark blue of the deep water, but they were framed with little crinkles of weariness.

"What have you been doing?" she asked as she came nearer to him. "Why are you so exhausted?"

"I have been seeking balance," he stated, "in the arctic seas and in the western tropics."

"Balance?" she asked. "What is there to balance in the ocean?"

He laughed then, and his laughter had a bit of bitterness to it, she thought.

"What can I do for you, Yue?" he asked again.

"I have come . . ." she began, but did not know what to say next. She had come to seek reconciliation with him, she supposed. She'd come to lay claim to something, but now she was not sure how she truly intended to lay claim to the ocean.

She searched his face for some hint of understanding from him, some encouragement to continue. Her eyes stopped on the shock of white hair that streaked the dark and her hand went up to touch it.

But he caught her fingers in a soft yet firm grip as she reached for him.

"What do you want with me, Yue?" he asked again quietly. Those eyes of his had grown a dark, stormy gray, and she became aware of the strength in his hand. And the warmth of it.

She began to tremble. "I don't know," she stammered. "I am sorry." He let go of her and she looked up again at his hair, so much like Sokka's. Then she remembered at least part of her errand.

"I just wanted you to know you have nothing to worry about," she said. "It's over. I have ended it." He closed his eyes for a moment as if searching mentally for something. After a brief pause, he opened them again with a little smile.

"Thank you," he replied softly. Then he let go of her hand, but she did not move away.

They stood there a long moment, silence hanging heavily between them.

She wanted to say something else, to bridge the gap between them. She wanted to reach out to him again, but there was nothing to say, nothing to do.

"I am sorry," she said again softly. But she wasn't precisely sure what she was sorry for.

Then she left and the room was a little darker in her absence.


	10. Chapter 10

Chapter Ten

Ocean watched Yue leave with a mixture of relief and regret. It had stirred feelings and memories in him to have her there in his house. The feel of her touch still burned his fingertips.

How long had he held back from going to her? How long had he patiently waited for her to come to him? How many times had he watched her from a distance, letting her grow, answering her questions, allowing her room to find her place?

And now she had finally come to him and he'd been too afraid to do anything about it. It had been fear, pure and simple, he decided as he stood there in the huge empty hall. He was afraid to care about her.

He was afraid to let her care about him as well. She'd reached out to touch him twice now. And both times he'd held her away from him, keeping her at a distance when all he wanted was to have her close.

At least she'd ended this bender's strange powers, he thought to himself, relieved to have sensed that the non-melting ice construction that had grated against his spirit so was gone at last, returned to its natural state. However, it still gnawed at him that she'd granted so much of herself to this human in the first place.

Yue was not Tui, he knew that. But he was still afraid of what might happen if he let himself think about her, if he let himself care about her.

He did not want to be just one of many ever again. He would rather be alone than wonder who his lover was really thinking about as she lay beside him. It was far better to be alone than to be in that agony of uncertainty. He tried to convince himself that the best path was politeness and a cool friendship. She could go her way and he could go his.

It was far better to be alone.

But the feel of her still tingled in his fingertips and the room was so very dark without her.

Yue fled the red coral palace, but instead of going to her tower of ivory, she ran to the moon. It was a place of serenity, peace, and beauty. There far above the earth's surface, she saw everything and nothing, too far away to see the details. From there, all was beautiful, from the dusty reds of the desert to the rich green of the jungles to the rich brown of the mountains to . . . the deep blue of the sea.

As she watched the ocean, she could see the rough waves of the southern seas, rolling with the same fury she'd seen so many times from the ramparts of the Northern Water Tribe city in her youth. She shivered a little at the memory of the awesome power and the fear those waves had engendered in her as a little girl when the fury of a winter storm threatened the walls of the city itself with gigantic waves of icy grey.

And in the tropics, she could see a monstrous circular storm that surged off the coast of the Fire Nation and out into the great stretches of the western waters of the planet. It was nearly half the size of the Earth Kingdom itself and she could only imagine the devastation if such a storm were to come ashore. But it had turned away from the populated coasts and now headed out into the unbroken vastness of the western ocean.

Balance, he had said. Somehow, Ocean had to find balance for these things. How had she not ever noticed how much activity took place in the seas of the planet? Was the Moon that removed from everything?

To her the Moon was endlessly fascinating, but to someone as knowledgeable as Ocean, the Moon had to be pretty boring, she decided. Add to that the fact that she wasn't really a spirit—not like the others. She was just a Water Tribe girl in the wrong place. She didn't belong there. She didn't have the knowledge or the ability to truly be a spirit and in charge of balancing anything.

She remembered the exhaustion in his face. Ocean was such a mystery to her. His world—the spirit world—was still such a mystery as well. And when she'd reached out to him, he'd held her away.

She knew then that Ocean was not interested in her. After all she had so little to offer to him. He'd held her at a distance from him, unwilling to meet her touch. But the warmth of his hand still clung to her fingers.

How had he gotten the white that streaked through his dark hair? Had Tui marked him for her own in the same way she'd marked Sokka? Surely Ocean still grieved for her loss. He might even hate Yue for taking her place. He might even despise her for not being a fit replacement.

Yue watched the waters roll beneath her and felt the tides pulling on the great expanses of ocean. But knowing she could move the ocean's waters on the earthly plane only made her feel worse. Ocean was not interested in her.

The huge storm continued to spiral off the coast of the Earth Kingdom, its cloud structure pulling in moisture from nearly half a planet away. It was monstrous. And somehow it was Ocean's job to keep that kind of incredible power in balance with the rest of the world's weather.

Once more, she felt completely useless on the quiet, unmoving, dead moon. Sudden loneliness struck her and she for an instant considered going back to the beautiful palace of red coral that Ocean called home. But then she considered the fact that Ocean probably did not want her there.

But she did not want to be alone any more. She spent so much of her time alone, it seemed.

And though she'd told Ocean she had ended her interest in Sokka, she found herself looking for him and knew just how to find him.

As the moon floated overhead, she could bring her focus into him as she'd done many times before, looking in on him, she'd told herself. Just watching over him.

She watched him walk back from the beach with his wife and children and learned from their conversation that his lovely ice castle had been wrecked by the tide.

His wife was obviously relieved, but Yue was saddened. She wondered just how much of that had been deliberately done by an angry Ocean.

Then as she watched Sokka and his wife head home, play with the children, make dinner together, converse with friends, then finally go to bed together, she grew even sadder.

She was so alone. Ocean didn't want her. She didn't fit into the spirit world. Sokka had moved on with his life without her. Now his wife lay at his side, secure in his embrace while she could only watch—all alone.

But now that Sokka was sleeping, she didn't have to remain alone.

Sokka dreamed of fishing. The boat was finished and he and the Duke had headed out once more into their best grounds. In his dream, he stood on the deck in the darkness with only the Moon overhead to light his work.

Then she was there with him. Lovely as usual, glowing with moonlight. But instead of being simply transcendently beautiful, she was also transcendently sad. As she looked up into his eyes, he was disturbed to see a tear roll down her cheek, leaving a silver trail on her skin.

He wiped it away and she leaned her face into his hand.

"What's wrong, Yue?" he asked her tenderly.

As if the sound of his voice had opened a door in her heart, she found herself weeping against his chest. His arms went around her, his embrace strong and warm. She cried for a little while longer, then simply rested against him as he stroked her hair quietly.

"Are you okay?" he asked after a while.

She looked up at him and nodded. Then she reached up to run her fingers through that white streak she'd left him with. That streak of moonlight in his hair that marked him as hers.

Without thinking, she then stroked his cheek and ran her fingertips across his mouth. He caught her hand then, but instead of holding it away, he pressed a kiss into the palm.

A little shiver went through her and she stepped closer to him. When he didn't move, she reached up to pull him to her.

All the loneliness fell away from her with the touch of his lips on hers. All the years of watching the earth roll by as her own life stood still. All the longing and loss she'd felt at losing her old life with its promises of love and happiness. All the emotion she'd felt at saving Sokka's life when he needed her most. All these feelings came together into a cresting wave of need and passion as she kissed him.

For Sokka, her touch flowed into him and through him like water. Waterbending was about the pleasure of helping others, the lesson scroll said. But in Sokka's mind at that moment, waterbending pretty much just equated to pleasure. Just pure pleasure on every level.

He pulled away from her for a moment to try to catch his breath. He caught the scent of her hair again. "Can you smell in a dream?" he asked absently.

"Yes," she whispered, "you can." Then she pulled him to her again.

And as she kissed him, it felt like all the abilities he'd received from her were kicked into pleasure overdrive. The surge of power threatened to overwhelm him, both with its strength and with the instant response from deep inside him. He grew breathless again and clutched at her, not so much with passion of his own as with overload.

It was too much. He could not contain the overflow of her spirit into him and felt himself falling into a kind of sweet oblivion.

As he sank out of his dreams and into unconsciousness, Yue realized what she'd done. She'd lost control of herself and poured even more of her spirit into Sokka.

Ocean was already angry that she'd made Sokka a bender. How much more angry would he be now that she'd made him even more powerful?

Who knew what kind of bending powers Sokka would have when he awakened-if he awakened. She looked down at his still form in the natural world, to all appearances a man deeply asleep. Only she knew just how deep this 'sleep' ran.

Terrified, she ran to the one person who could help her find her way out the mess she was in.

"Lian Shen, you have to help me!" she cried as she entered Lian Shen's leafy green abode. Huge flowers of all colors hung everywhere, their perfume making the air sweet and heavy. Lian Shen lay on a soft hillock of grass and fragrant vines with a young man who appeared to be sleeping.

"Shhhh," Lian Shen directed her. "You'll wake him."

"Who is this?" Yue asked. "What is he doing here?"

Lian Shen ran a slim green finger down the young man's bare torso. "Just a wanderer in the swamps, I believe," she said in a languid voice. "But isn't he a delight?"

"So you kidnapped a strange man and brought him here? Why?" Yue was shocked.

"Oh, Yue," she sighed. "You would not believe how boring the swamp can get. A girl needs a little diversion." The young man stirred and opened his eyes a bit sleepily.

Lian Shen stroked his face with her fingertips and whispered to him, "You better head back, darling. Don't want you to be here too long. It's not good for you. But give us a kiss before you go."

Then she planted a long, leisurely kiss on the young man's lips, complete with a good bit of physical contact, before the young man faded away back into the natural world, a look of mystification on his face.

"Lian Shen, that isn't right," Yue declared firmly. "That young man never asked to be here. And what about Mountain?"

"What Mountain doesn't know doesn't hurt him," Lian Shen declared firmly. "Now what brings you here in such a twist?"

Quickly Yue confided in her friend just what she'd done to Sokka.

But instead of being horrified, Lian Shen just laughed. "Good for Ocean," she cried out as she clapped her hands in delight. "Just what he needs, a real rival at last!"

"What do you mean?" Yue asked in confusion.

"Ocean whined about Tui's lovers for centuries but they were never more than momentary diversions to her," Lian Shen replied, her eyes gleaming. "However, you, my dear, have really made your lover an actual threat to him! Tui had plenty of fun in her time, but she never once created anything like the mess you've made, Yue!"

As Lian Shen continued to laugh in some kind of malicious delight, Yue's spirits sank even further. So Tui had been like Lian Shen. Pulling lovers into her domain on a whim and casting them back into the natural world as it pleased her—as mystified as the young man she'd just seen lying half naked on Lian Shen's bed of flowers, but unharmed and unchanged.

Had she done the same thing? Sokka wasn't her lover.

Was he? Did he truly want to be with her? Or was he just caught in a dream? Her dream?

Yue considered what she'd done and put her face in her hands in misery.

"Oh, pull yourself together," Lian Shen instructed. "It's not the end of the world. Ocean will be angry, certainly, but he'll get over it. He's too besotted with you to be angry for long."

Yue looked up at that.

"Just bat those innocent blue eyes at him and insist that you didn't know your own power," Lian Shen continued. Then she gave Yue a long look and stated decisively, "Which is the truth. You had no idea what you were doing, did you?"

Yue shook her head. "But what about Sokka? I need to fix this."

"There's likely not a lot of fixing you can do," Lian Shen replied. "Your young man will either learn to deal with his abilities or he won't."

"Meantime, you just concentrate on keeping Ocean happy. Go make him happy if you have to. It's like with me and Mountain," Lian Shen continued. "The swamp and the mountain have to be in balance with one another. So I throw the old fellow a bone upon occasion and it keeps him happy. You go do the same with Ocean and all will be well."

As Yue listened, she grew cold inside. Lian Shen's idea of balance struck her as very wrong. "But Ocean isn't interested in me," she began.

"Nonsense. Ocean is a fool for you. Look at how he's changed," Lian Shen answered dismissively, picking a flower from the bank of blossoms beside her and carefully placing it in her hair. "He's followed every move you've made for years now, just waiting for you to be ready to take your place at his side."

Then she turned back to Yue with another self-satisfied smile. "And I cannot tell you how it does my heart good to see him made into a fool. Once again a love-struck fool. First for Tui and now for you," she laughed out loud.

A fool. Yue had made Ocean a fool in Lian Shen's eyes. The thought mortified her. How could she have done such a thing?

Hastily she made her goodbyes and went back to Kyoshi Island where Sokka lay still and quiet in his bed. Outside a soft rain had begun to fall, but oddly enough, none of it fell on the little house where he lay in an unconscious state closer to death than sleep.


	11. Chapter 11

Chapter 11

Just before dawn, Zuko slipped from Toph's warm embrace and made his way quietly down the stairs of the guest house to the beach. The sun not yet up, he exulted in the darkness and coolness of the night, knowing that in only moments, the first rays of his element would begin to show themselves as gray smudges on the horizon.

That moment of when darkness gave way to light, coolness to warmth was something he cherished deeply. Each time he greeted the sunrise, he felt like a true firebender in touch with his deepest, truest self.

He could barely see the path as he walked down to the sand. For a long moment he just stood there in the darkness and listened to the distant whisper of the waves. Then he closed his eyes and waited for sunrise, allowing himself to greet the morning by feel rather than by sight. He began running through the basic firebending forms first in his mind, then in his body as the sun began to rise around him.

Even with his eyes closed, he could feel the globe of fire rising in the sky. He could sense the sun even before his skin began to tingle with the first touches of heat. After several minutes of warm up moves, he could feel the fire rising in him, demanding to be released in jets of searing flame.

But he controlled that fire, kept it in check, refused to give it the outlet it demanded. Part of firebending was learning to keep the fire contained and this was the part he struggled with constantly.

Fire without containment was destructive. Only firm control gave the fire direction and purpose.

At last Zuko had mastered the first rush of his element through his system and was ready to begin bending in earnest. Only then did he open his eyes. One never firebended blindly—the potential for collateral damage was too high.

And the sight that met his eyes as he opened them in the early morning light stopped him mid-move.

The beach was not bordered by open water. The sand was not lapped by waves.

Instead of a sun-drenched semi-tropical island, it appeared that he stood on the beach of the Southern Water Tribe's arctic continent. The ocean for the first twenty or so feet was frozen solid.

Further out, the waves still moved freely, but as far up and down the beach as he could see, the beach itself was locked in by ice.

Zuko stopped and stood there in amazement, sweat from his exertions in the morning sun beginning to bead up on his forehead. He walked down to what should have been the waterline and knelt down, his hand hovering over the icy edge.

It wasn't cold.

Frowning, he touched it with the palm of his hand.

It wasn't cold at all.

An insistent pounding at the door woke Suki that morning just at sunrise. She rose and quickly pulled her robe around her. Who could it be at that hour?

She was surprised to see a shirtless Zuko at the door.

"Where's Sokka?" he asked brusquely as he stepped into the room without waiting for an invitation.

"Asleep," Suki answered. "I'll get him for you."

But in only a moment or two, she had returned, her face pale and her hands trembling. "I can't wake him, Zuko," she explained, her eyes wide with fear. "Something's not right."

"No, something is not right at all," Zuko stated firmly. "I'll find Aang."

Soon Aang and Katara stood next to Sokka's unconscious form, Aang's tattoos glowing blue in the heightened awareness of the avatar state, Katara's globe of crystal blue water circling around and over her brother.

"How far out does the ice reach?" Aang asked Zuko, his eyes still glowing as he sought answers to explain Sokka's condition.

"Twenty feet at least," Zuko replied.

"Make that thirty," came the Duke's voice from behind them as he too entered the room. "I went down to check the boat this morning only to find out that we're ice locked in the middle of summer. What's going on here?"

Aang let go of the avatar state and looked at them worriedly. "I wish I knew," he answered. "I can't reach his spirit. He's not asleep, but he's not in a spirit trance either."

Katara sighed and ran her waters back into the flask at her hip. "All I can tell is that his water chakra is completely open. He's bending in his sleep." Then she looked down on Sokka's too-still form. "Or whatever state this is."

"If I had to guess," Zuko ventured, "I'd say it was a state similar to the fever that Toph had in Lian Shen's swamp. But he's not feverish, is he?"

"No," Aang responded, "but I think you are right. The two are very similar states. Unfortunately, Sokka isn't in the spirit world as I know it. Lian Shen did not do this."

"Then who did?" asked Zuko.

Suki looked up at them then from her seat next to her husband. She smoothed back the hair from Sokka's forehead and ran the strands of white through her fingers as she gave them the answer.

"Yue."

Back in her ivory tower in the spirit realm, Yue sat on the silvery gray sofa alone. She'd never felt so alone or so desperate. Sokka was unreachable. She didn't know if he'd ever awaken.

And if he did, Ocean would know that she'd lied to him. She hadn't ended anything with Sokka. In fact, she'd made it worse. She'd gone to him. She'd kissed him. She'd added to his already epic bending abilities.

She didn't know where to go, who to turn to. Miserably, she lay her head down on a pillow and tried to think.

"Yue!"

The voice was an angry roar as she looked up, startled by the sound.

"Yue!"

It came again, and she knew whose voice it was.

Ocean.

He knew. He knew what she had done.

"Yue!"

The voice was still angry, but now anguished as well.

"Yue!"

He called to her still and now he seemed quite near. In fact, he stood inside the doorway of her tower, his head bowed, leaning heavily on the doorway for support.

Though she was afraid, she still went to him.

"Ocean?" she asked cautiously.

"Oh, Yue," he whispered in agony, never meeting her eyes, "what have you done?" And with that, he collapsed to the floor at her feet.

In the Northern Water Tribe Spirit Oasis, the little pond where the koi fish lived began to freeze, its residents trapped in the unmelting ice.

Ocean had borne all he could stand. From the first stirrings of that unnatural warping of his element, he'd known that she'd lied to him. She hadn't ended this bender's powers at all.

Instead she'd strengthened them.

As the first few inches around Kyoshi Island had begun to freeze, he'd felt it, like the sting of jellynettles into his skin, a disturbance he could not ignore. Then as more and more of his water turned to that ice that wasn't ice, the pain had worsened exponentially. But it was more than pain—it was sickness, it was weakness, it was an aching void in his spirit.

As the ice sheet began to grow, he gritted his teeth against it and fought back the wave after wave of sickness than ran though him. He sent wave after wave against it, hoping to cause the unnatural mass to melt away, but it held firm.

Whatever Yue had done to this man, he was powerful. Too powerful.

And unprincipled. No bender had ever attempted to pervert water into this form.

He tried to find him, to stop him, but the pain and the weakness caused by the torturing of his element made it impossible for him to concentrate.

As more and more of the waters around Kyoshi Island slipped out of his grasp, he finally called out to the only person who could possibly stop this bender.

Yue.

He could find her anywhere and he did. He wanted to shake her, to demand of her what she was thinking when she created this monster.

But the ice had begun to close in on his consciousness as well and he could not think any longer. Pain wracked him, sickness made his head swim. He didn't have the strength to walk into the room. He felt as though he was suffocating, as if there were no air to breathe.

"Oh, Yue. What have you done?" And nothingness reached out for him with a terrifying rush.

Yue watched her consort fall to the floor of her tower in disbelief. How could this happen? What could possibly be wrong?

She knelt beside him where he lay face down on the smooth gray floor. Somehow she managed to turn him over. He wasn't breathing.

How could this be? What was wrong with him? He was a spirit. Spirits didn't get sick.

Spirits didn't die.

Then she noticed the white streak in his hair. It was no longer the white of moonlight. Instead, it was turning gray, as if the moonlight were being leached out of it.

She reached out to touch it, half expecting his hand to stop her. But Ocean lay still and unmoving.

As her fingers met the gray strands, she knew why he hadn't let her touch it before.

Memory rushed through her at the touch—not her own memories-Ocean's memories. Recent memories of speaking with her in the ballroom of his beautiful coral palace, memories of looking up at the moon from the back of a rolling wave, memories of showing her around the spirit world, of bringing her to this tower for the first time, memories of seeing her first inhabit the little white moon fish at the Spirit Oasis, all these rushed through her at the touch.

Further back, were memories of Tui as well. She could feel anger and grief as the little black ocean fish watched Admiral Zhao murder the whit moon fish. And even further back were other memories of Tui. Sad memories seemed to predominate. There was such loneliness as he watched the moon so far overhead. There was anger as Tui fought with him in the red palace. There was jealousy as he came upon her with her lover in the ivory tower.

The same tower where Yue now lived.

What had she done?

That white streak of hair was the mark of the moon on him. It was the part of him that belonged to the moon.

But she'd marked Sokka as hers instead. She'd taken what had been Ocean's right and place for millennia and had given it to someone else.

Now the moonlight was fading from Ocean's hair. And even worse, his very life was fading as well.

Aang snapped out of the avatar state with a jerk.

"Katara, you have got to wake him up!" he declared. "I don't know what he's doing, but it's having repercussions in the spirit world. Somehow this ice is damaging the balance of the four elements."

Katara looked at him in horror and sadness. "I would if I could, Aang," she declared. "There's nothing I can do. I've tried."

"And this ice cannot be melted by any waterbending means known to any of the avatars in the past," Aang sighed. "Plus I get the crazy feeling that the ice isn't just here. Somehow, it has run over into the spirit world. Sokka's not just affecting Kyoshi Island any more. He's linked in somehow to the spiritual plane—maybe through this link with Yue."

Aang noticed Suki's reaction, but had no time to pull punches or consider her feelings. "Suki, has Sokka said anything to you about that night he came home? Has he told you how he survived the shipwreck?"

Suki just shook her head no sadly, tears beginning to run down her face.

Aang frowned, then his brow wrinkled in thought. Entering the avatar state, he reached out one hand to touch the white hair that streaked through the dark.

Soon, he returned to his usual form, his frown even deeper. He knew now what Yue had done for Sokka—done to Sokka-that night in the water. He knew now how powerful the gift had been that she'd given him.

But he still knew of no way to reverse it.

When he said as much, Zuko stated seriously, "You removed my father's bending abilities so he could not continue to wage war against the world, Aang. Can't you this same thing now?"

Aang shook his head. "Fire Lord Ozai was conscious and present in the natural world. Sokka is not. To remove this ability now might cause his spirit to be stranded between worlds, neither in the natural nor in the spirit. I don't know what would happen to him."

Suki spoke up then, her voice rough and quiet with emotion, "Then can't you contact Yue in the spirit world. Can't you make her let him go before it kills him?"

"I've been trying to do just that," Aang replied sadly. "But something is standing in the way of reaching either Yue or La. It's like whatever Sokka is doing here is somehow blocking the way to them."

"And I do not know how to break through," the avatar added with a sigh.


	12. Chapter 12

Chapter 12

In the far reaches of the planet, the Northern Water Tribe was built around a secret cave at the north pole. In a land of ice and snow, that cave was different. It was lush and green, full of an everpresent warmth and vitality that had nothing to do with its physical location on the planet.

The Spirit Oasis was not a place completely on the earth. It was a place that straddled the planes of existence, having a physical presence at the Northern Water Tribe kingdom and in the spirit world at the same time. The warmth and lushness came from its proximity to the spirit, while its little koi residents existed for the most part in the world of the natural.

And as Sokka's influence in the spirit world had grown stronger, this influence had centered around the spiritual location of the oasis and the pond of crystal water that somehow existed in both planes. As this influence manifested itself as his favorite new bending invention—unmelting ice—it began to freeze the little pond of crystal water as well, trapping the little fish in its unmelting grip.

The moon fish still swam freely in her little portion of pond, but the ocean fish was not so lucky. Its side had frozen first, trapping him in a shrinking pocket of water until at last, the pocket had gone completely solid with him in its grip.

His gills tried to move, his eyes blinked against the dryness, but to no avail. He was well and truly locked into place. And he was suffocating.

He might have died if not for the attention of one of the oasis attendants, who happened to see the predicament he was in. The attendant grabbed a nearby basin and scooped up the still free moon fish from her shrinking pool of water, then turned his attention to breaking free the ocean fish.

The ice was hard—as hard as any ice outside at the frozen pole—but it was not unbreakable. And seeing the urgency of the situation as the black ocean fish grew still and unmoving, the attendant redoubled his efforts.

At last the ocean fish was free and had been slipped into the refreshing freedom of the crystal water in the basin where the moon fish swam happily. Soon his gills began to move again. But he did not awaken. Instead he lay quietly on his side in the water.

The moon fish circled him slowly, as if questioning him. Then she stopped and nudged him a little with the tip of her nose.

At her touch, he began to move.

Yue knelt helplessly next to Ocean as he lay there before her, so pale and still. Then he took in a short, sharp breath. Color began come into his skin as he finally began to breathe again and relief flooded through her.

But he did not awaken.

And the white lock of hair continued to fade into gray.

One of the best advantages of being a spirit, she decided, was the ability to go where one wished with only a thought. And she put her hands on Ocean's shoulders and willed them both off the hard, cold floor and onto her bed where at least he would be comfortable.

It was very strange to have Ocean in her bed. Very strange indeed.

He lay there quietly, his clothing of green and blue leather in sharp contrast to the silver and white silk and linen of her bedding. One hand dangled from the edge of the mattress and she took it in hers to move it back across his stomach so he would be more comfortable. As she did, she noticed that he wore a heavy red and gold ring on his third finger. The stone appeared to be the same red coral as his beautiful palace.

Now that he was breathing again, his hand had grown warmer, but it was still cool to the touch and she held it in both of hers to warm it again. His hand was strong and rough, not soft like hers. This was a hand that knew work and occupation.

But he was a spirit. What kind of occupation and work could he have? she wondered. She realized that there was so much about Ocean she did not know. She had no idea how hard it was for him to balance the world's oceans. She did not know how he spent his time otherwise. Did he live in the coral palace all the time or did he have other homes in the spirit world?

The one thing she did know from her touch on the moonlit lock of hair that drifted across her pillow was that he had no other consort. He was bound to the moon by a bond deeper than love, deeper than desire.

And she knew from that touch that he did love her.

And he did desire her.

But not at the cost he'd paid too many times before with Tui. Their names were La and Tui—push and pull. Give and take. But Tui had been much more about taking than giving and had spent her time pulling him close only to push him away again.

Yue could not do that. She could not be the inconstant moon. If she'd married Hahn, she would have been true to him, despite his nature. She would have been true to him and so very unhappy.

If instead, she'd somehow married Sokka, she would have been true to him as well.

But fate had decreed that they were not to be. Sokka was true to his wife, Suki. She knew when she'd kissed him that he was surprised by it, overwhelmed by it, but he did not return her kiss as she'd imagined he would.

Lian Shen had called Ocean a fool. As she watched him sleeping in her bed now, she knew that she was the fool. She was the one who'd cast aside what the spirits had given her as not only her place but as her privilege.

His skin was much warmer now and his breathing was more natural. She studied his strong jaw, his dark eyelashes. She saw both strength and vulnerability in his sleeping countenance.

She reached out to stroke his cheek, aware that if he were awake, he would stop her. He would hold her hand away from him.

But asleep in her bed, he could not stop her touch.

Then she leaned forward. Asleep in her bed, he could not stop her kiss either.

But she could stop herself. And she did. She'd kissed Sokka twice now without his permission, without considering the consequences of her touch.

To kiss Ocean now would be just as wrong, just as inconsiderate of his feelings. If she crossed that line with him, she would be making an eternal commitment to him. She would not make this commitment without his acceptance. She had to know that he wanted it as well.

And she knew that was how Tui and Lian Shen had done it. They kissed without feeling, without true emotion. They took lovers as out of vanity and boredom, out of sensual desire—out of lust.

But when she'd kissed Sokka, she'd meant it. And her kiss had marked him.

She'd kissed Sokka out of emotion. Out of love?

Yue considered that idea. Did she love Sokka? What did it mean to love someone?

Sokka had called out to her as he was fighting for his life after being washed overboard. But his desire had not been for her. Instead he'd asked Yue to take care of Suki and his children, to watch over them.

She began to realized the truth of Sokka's feelings. He did not love her. He was married. And if he'd been untrue to his wife in any way with Yue, Yue felt the blame rested completely on her.

And she was heartily sorry for it now.

She was still very glad she'd saved Sokka's life. She still cared about him very much. But she could not say that she loved him. Not in the sense that a wife loves her husband. That was never meant to be. Sokka was meant to be with Suki.

But what about her? Where was she meant to be?

She looked around the ivory tower, a place that felt as much like home as her old bedroom in the Nothern Watertribe city ever had. She looked out the window at the floating orb of the moon, always visible from the tower, and it called to her heart like a mother calling to her beloved child.

She was meant to be here. In this place. She was the moon. She knew that deep within her very spirit.

Then she looked down at the man beside her.

What about Ocean? He was the sea, consort of the moon. If she was the moon, then he was hers and she was his—as it had been from the beginning and as it was even now.

She ran her hand once more down his hair and felt the connection between them, a connection she'd never appreciated until now, never understood until now.

Suddenly she knew what she wanted. She wanted the feel of his arms around her. She wanted to be secure in the ocean's embrace. She wanted their dance of push and pull to be truly a physical dance between them and not just the motions of the evermoving tide on the earth.

As Yue looked down on the sleeping Ocean in her bed, she knew that she was meant to be here, in the spirit world, with Ocean at her side. She was meant to be his consort—his wife.

And when he awakened, she would be certain he knew this.

In Sokka's house, Suki was not so certain about things. She did not know what was happening with her husband. She did not know why or how he was doing the things he was doing.

All she knew was that Sokka had not awakened, that the ocean around Kyoshi Island was still freezing—but at a much slower rate—and that the Duke had announced a little while ago that the new boat's hull had been crushed in the harbor by the expanding ice.

The ship was gone. Their savings were gone. The debt would take everything they had and more to cover. There was nothing left.

But none of that mattered to her now. All that mattered was that her husband still lay there so still and unmoving. She needed him back with her.

Not for support, not for comfort, not for companionship. She needed him back because he was the other part of her.

She'd even let Yue keep a little part of him to have him back with her-as much as it chafed to even think of sharing him in any way with another woman.

In a brief flash of anger, Suki wished Yue had never shown up in their lives. But if she hadn't, Sokka would be dead right now, she reconsidered.

Suki reached out to touch her husband's cheek. Why did it all have to be so complicated?

The white streak in his hair was so bright it glowed. The moon had kissed him, he told Zutara. This was true. Yue had kissed him. She had marked him.

But Suki had seen him first. She'd kissed Sokka on Kyoshi Island long before Yue had known his name. And she was his wife. Nothing could change that. Not even the moon spirit.

Suki reached out to touch his face, then ran her fingers through the dark strands of his hair. Then she bent down to kiss him, to put her own mark on him once more.

But her husband did not stir.

Sokka, meanwhile, was lost.

He was completely lost in an evershifting plane of half-thought, half-memory. It was a little like being lost in the swamp outside Omashu, he decided after a while. He kept seeing glimpses of people and places he'd known, mixed in with creatures of his childhood imagination and images he recognized as from the spirit plane, both from Aang's descriptions and his own fuzzy memories of being kidnapped as a teenager by an enraged forest spirit.

He tried to just let it all flow past him, knowing that if he fought it, it would only get weirder and probably much scarier. Sure enough just then a monkey with a horrible blank space where its face should be scampered down a tree into his path, then ran away. Scary, he decided.

Then things grew misty, as if he were traveling through a deep fog off the coast of the Southern Water Tribe. He was on a boat then with his father. He suddenly remembered that day. It was the day he'd told his father he was going to build the new boat. Hakoda had only shook his head in doubtful resignation.

In retrospect, his father was right. The new boat had been a disaster thanks to that storm.

Then he was back on the boat, feeling the wave take him overboard.

Without warning, the wave washed him atop one of the Fire Nation's airships on the Day of the Comet. His black meteor sword was back in his hand. It felt good.

Then he held little Zutara's hand in his. It was the day she was born. She was so tiny, her little fingers wrapping around the end of his. He'd never held anything more precious than that tiny little girl. He could see Suki's face, tired and pale, but smiling at him.

The Spirit Oasis suddenly sprang into his view. He was surprised to see Zuko frozen to the wall. Then Zuko was gone but the oasis remained. The pond was frozen over with his neat super-ice. Well, that was no good, he decided. The fish can't live in that. So he thawed it.

And in the natural world, the pond of the real Spirit Oasis thawed as well.

Within seconds, Aang stood before him. "Sokka," the avatar cried in relief. "Thank goodness I found you."

Sokka just smiled at him, expecting any moment for him to fade away or turn into a leopardbear or something even weirder.

But Aang kept talking instead. "We've got to get you awake. Do you think maybe you can follow me back out of the spirit world?"

"I guess," Sokka replied. And as Aang faded, he put his hand on Sokka's shoulder.

But though Aang faded back into the natural world, Sokka was left behind. The watertribesman just shrugged. Such were spirit world fantasies, he decided.

To his surprise, Aang was back in only a moment. "That didn't work too well," he declared. "At least the way into the Spirit Oasis is open again. Let me try something else."

Yue sat next to Ocean, watching him breathe, waiting for him to open his eyes. She could wait an eternity if necessary, she'd decided.

Then without warning, Avatar Aang stood beside her. "My pardon," he said politely with a bow. "Do you remember me, Yue?"

"Of course I do, Aang. How could I forget?" she replied and held out her hand to him. He took it with a polite squeeze and another bow. "But you certainly did grow up," she added with a laugh.

"So did you, Yue," Aang replied, secretly blown away by the way Yue had grown up. She was . . . what was the word for it, he wondered . . . then he decided it was transcendent. She was absolutely transcendent. No wonder Sokka had gone off the deep end.

"Yue, we need your help, please," Aang began. Then he noticed Ocean's still form on the bed. "What's wrong with La?" he asked.

"I have no idea," Yue answered. "He showed up here very upset, like he was hurting or sick. Then he passed out and hasn't woken up."

Aang frowned at that. The situations were far too similar for his liking, he decided. Quickly he summarized the situation they'd found themselves in with Sokka as well.

Yue looked very troubled. "Perhaps I can bring Sokka here," Aang offered.

"No," came Yue's firm answer. "I will go with you."

Back in the Spirit Oasis, Sokka sat next to the pond, spinning little globes of water overhead in patterns of ever-increasing complexity.

Then Yue was there with Aang and he let the water go with a splash. Maybe it was the spirit world bleeding through on him, but she looked more like the watertribe princess he'd once known than like the moon spirit right at that moment. She looked worried.

"Yue, do you think you can take back at least part of the bending powers you gave Sokka?" Aang asked.

"I don't know," she answered. "I can try. Sokka, do you want me to try?"

The question took him by surprise. Did he want to give up part of this incredible ability? Maybe all of it? He could feel the crystal water of the Spirit Oasis beside him. He could feel it moving with his breathing as he bended it without even trying.

Then he looked around him at the mists surrounding the Oasis. This place was as close to real as anything he'd come across in here. But as lovely as it was, he could still feel Zutara's tiny fingers wrapped around his. He could still see Suki's lovely tired face. He'd been so scared for her every time she'd been pregnant. Each delivery had been terrifying. And with the twins he'd come very close to losing both her and the babies.

He looked up to blink back sudden tears and to his surprise, saw that the moon hung in the sky over the spirit oasis. He looked up at the beautiful, white, shining moon, but could only see Suki's face.

Then Sokka looked over at Aang and said, "I just want to go home. All I ever wanted was to go home."


	13. Chapter 13

Chapter 13

Yue heard Sokka's words and understood the truth of them completely. Sokka belonged somewhere else. She looked at him then, the white strands of her touch streaking his dark hair and she knew she had to end it. She had to give him back his life.

But she had no idea how to do it.

Aang looked at her expectantly, but she only shrugged. "I don't know how I did it in the first place," she admitted sheepishly. "How can I know how to take it back?"

Aang frowned and began to pace.

"I need to go back to check on Ocean," she stated after a long minute.

"We'll be here," Sokka answered. "Unless Aang thinks of something."

Yue turned her attention back to the ivory tower and was beside the still-sleeping Ocean in a thought. There had to be a way to wake him, she decided. Perhaps then Ocean would know how to undo what she had done.

She looked at him again, appalled to see that his hair had grown even grayer. When it had grown completely dark again, would the Ocean no longer be pulled by the Moon? Would the tides no longer function? Would balance be forever lost on the earth?

She reached up to touch the strands once more, and the idea of losing that connection with him-a connection barely begun-made her want to cry. She leaned forward then and impulsively kissed his cheek. Would he forget her? Would she mean nothing to him then?

As she leaned into him, her cheek pressed to his, she felt him stir a little beside her.

"Ocean," she called to him, "please wake up." But he did not stir again.

She stroked his hands and his face. She talked to him. But he did not move.

Then she tenuously, carefully, brushed his lips ever so lightly with hers. And he stirred again.

"Please come back to me," she begged him, then she kissed him again. Without his permission, but with her whole heart behind the kiss.

To her relief, he took a deep breath. She ran her fingers through his hair then and the gray strands began to glow silver. And she understood what she had to do. There could be only one. She had to choose one or the other of them.

And with another kiss, she made her choice. She chose the future instead of the past. She chose the one who belonged to her rather than to another.

With all her heart, she chose Ocean. At the touch of her lips on his, a sensation ran though her as if the light of the moon itself passed through her and into his body. Now Ocean carried a part of her with him—not just the moon, not Tui any longer, but a part of Yue herself.

This time his eyes fluttered open and she grew afraid. Would he reject her touch? Did he want her mark? Was it too late?

She saw it in his eyes as he realized where he was, and she grew cold with fear.

"Please don't push me away," she pleaded.

His eyes met hers as the lock of moon-touched hair glowed white once more.

"Please come back to me," she whispered.

"I never left," he answered quietly, as he pulled her into his arms.

At Sokka's bedside, Suki saw her husband's chest rise and fall as he took a deep breath. "Sokka, are you awake?" she asked, taking his hand in hers.

"No," he answered. But he rolled over onto his side, pulling her against him as he did so. "I had such weird dreams, Su," he whispered. "I dreamed I was a waterbender."

On the beach, Zuko watched with relief as the strange ice melted away and the waves lapped freely against the sand once more.

At the harbor, the Duke watched as the new fishing vessel began to list in the water, then truly sink as its icy drydock began to disappear around it.

Within a few hours, Sokka had woken up completely and with Suki and the children at his side had gone down to the docks to see just how bad the damage was. She was thrilled to see that the odd lock of white hair no longer glowed, and even appeared to be a little less extensive than it had been the night before. Maybe with time it would go away completely, she couldn't help but hope.

But something told her it was there to stay as Sokka effortlessly bended enough of the water out of the hull of the boat to float it to the shallows where it could be repaired.

"So I'm still a waterbender, I guess," Sokka declared, a bit of relief in his voice. Being able to bend had felt really good, and he didn't want to give it up completely.

But the super non-melting ice bending was beyond him now. For some reason, his abilities had tempered to something more like the run-of-the mill master bender. That would annoy Katara to no end, he decided a bit gleefully. It also felt good to have one on his talented sister.

The rest of the group had joined them at the dock, ready to commiserate with the fisherman on the loss of his ship.

"But after repairs, she'll be ready to go out again, right?" Jet asked.

Sokka shrugged. "I don't know if I'll be able to refit her," he replied.

"Why not? She looks fixable to me," Jet stated, taking another look at the hull. "You've got to get back out there, Sokka. The crazy old men won't have it any other way."

Sokka looked at him in confusion. "What are you talking about? What crazy old men?"

Mai laughed at that. "That's just our private nickname for the council of Omashu. The group is made up of the elders of the city and some of them are pretty elderly. They can be very demanding—and occasionally unreasonable," she explained.

"And at the trade summit that your disappearance called us away from—thank you for that at least-" Jet continued, "the council had just introduced discussion on the creation of a permanent trade route to the coast for shipments of shrimpcrab. You would not believe how popular it is in the city."

"The emperor of Ba Sing Se had sent a delegate with the express purpose of making sure that there was secure shipment to the palace," Mai added. "He'd offered to hire on some of the swamp benders to keep the catch fresh and frozen until it arrived."

Sokka was totally taken aback. He'd had no idea that the Duke's first trade ventures had been so successful. "You're kidding me," he could only say with a bit of a goofy grin on his face.

"Absolutely not," the Duke interjected. "I've been trying to tell you that we were sitting on a gold mine, Sokka."

"I thought you just wanted to get back to Omashu to see Eun Min," Sokka teased the younger man.

"Well, there is that," the Duke admitted, beginning to blush a little. "And to see Smellerbee, Longshot, and everybody else. But I really meant it when I told you that trade was good there. Very good."

Sokka looked back at his wreck of a boat and sighed.

"Well, Sokka, given time and hard work, we can rebuild it," Suki stated firmly in an encouraging voice. "The market will still be there when it's finished."

"The market won't wait long," Jet said. "We'll need to rebuild as quickly as possible and add at least a couple more boats to the fleet."

Sokka laughed out loud at that. "I would if I could, Jet. But everything I own is sitting right there on the sand with a huge hole in it."

"You never heard of investors?" Mai replied with a laugh of her own. "Jet and I want in, Sokka. We want in on the ground floor of this venture. Mostly to have our own source of fresh seafood. You wouldn't believe how boring catgator gets after a while."

Then Zuko cleared his throat. "But while they are working on repairing and construction," he began, "I have got a huge fish processing facility that needs design attention immediately. Toph and I headed down here to try to convince you to come work a while in the Fire Nation as a consultant. I've got plans for this place that call for a whole new approach to processing, and honestly, the Fire Nation's fishing fleet just doesn't have the expertise or the ideas to do it."

"A job," Sokka stated in disbelief. "You came to offer me a job."

"Only if you want to come live in the palace for a while," Toph chimed in. "We've got a whole suite of apartments empty that used to be Zuko's. I remodeled them myself."

Zuko gave them a wink and stated, "The color choices are unusual, but other than that . . ." Then he winced as Toph hit him on the arm.

"The colors are lovely, Sparky," she replied. "Grandfather Iroh selected them himself."

"Like I said, the color choices are unusual," Zuko responded with a grin, skipping just out of reach of Toph's next swipe at him.

Sokka looked over at Aang and Katara. "So what kind of miraculous offer do you two have to get me and Suki out of a tight spot?" he asked, only partially joking.

"None at all," Aang replied. "I'm just glad you can't bend that crazy ice anymore. It upset the balance of the elements."

Katara shook as if a cold chill had run over her. "Don't even remind me of that," she declared firmly. "That so-called ice of yours was one of the most horrible things I have ever encountered."

"You are over-reacting, Katara," Sokka retorted. "Who did it bother? Huh? Nobody but you."

"Zutara here didn't like it either, Sokka," Katara answered. "That's because she has the makings of a great waterbender."

"That's two of you then," Sokka said, but everyone could see the pride in his face as he stroked the little girl's hair.

"I agree with my lovely wife," Aang added. "You wouldn't believe just how badly that ice went over in the spirit world."

Sokka frowned. "But we're all cool there now, right, Aang?" he asked. "I don't want to be drowned by the next wave I come across just because some water spirit is holding a grudge."

"I think everybody is fine now," Aang replied.

In the ballroom of the red coral palace, Ocean looked around at the banks of flowers that had been brought by some of the spirits of field and garden. Interestingly enough, even Lian Shen had sent over a whole spray of some exotic blooms that made him feel a little dizzy when he got too close to them. He made it a priority to keep his distance.

The musicians would arrive soon, and the guests would follow. He ran a hand over his blue-green silk and velvet tunic, then through his hair. He hoped Yue approved of his choice of clothing.

As if she'd read his mind, the moon spirit appeared beside him and the room suddenly brightened with an inner glow, as if she made it come to life just by her presence.

"You look beautiful," were the first words out of his mouth. And she was. She was transcendently lovely in her gown of white spidermoth silk, the gossamer layers of her skirt appearing to float weightlessly around her. Then he noticed a lovely blue-green sash around her waist—a sash which perfectly matched his tunic.

She came close to him then and he encircled her waist with his hands. The ocean green silk felt soft and warm from her body and he let the long ends of the bow run through his fingertips like water. "What is this?" he asked her curiously. "You always wear white, Moon."

For an answer, she reached up to his hair and ran her fingers through the glowing white strands. "If you can wear my colors, La, surely I can wear yours as well," she replied suggestively. Then she pulled him closely to her for a kiss.

And oh, how it felt to kiss him. She'd kissed boys before. Kissing Hahn had felt like a chore. Kissing Sokka had been a rebellious act—every time she'd done it.

But kissing Ocean was different.

Every time he touched her, she felt complete.

To kiss him was transcendent.

But even more incredible was to make love to him, to feel the very tides themselves, the entire ocean move in her and through her.

She felt him kiss her neck, then her shoulder, and she drew in a breath of pure pleasure. After all, waterbending was pleasure and she was first among waterbenders.

"Our guests will be here soon," he murmured against her neck and she could feel the ends of his hair brushing her bare skin.

She tangled her fingers into his dark hair, streaked with a lock of pure moonlight, then pulled him away from her to look into his deep blue eyes—the color of a summer sea. "We have all the time in the world," she whispered. "Let them wait."

Then she kissed him again, marking him as her own.

Far away in the Spirit Oasis at the North Pole, the two little fish, moon and ocean, white and black, each marked with a spot of the other's color, swam happily opposite one another.

"This is very curious," stated the old man who squatted next to the pond, observing the behavior of the two fish.

"What is curious?" asked the young man who assisted him in tending to the oasis garden and the pond of spirit water.

"I've been searching the records for as far back as I can discover," the old man began, "and I have not found any record of the fish swimming with this kind of distance between them. I have to wonder what it means."

The young man looked into the pond at the little spirit fish as they swam opposite one another, merrily mirroring the balance between Moon and Ocean. "They look okay to me," the young man said.

"But the circle is so small," the old man replied, mystified. "They always stay close enough to touch."

THE END

_(Author's Note: I cannot believe I actually finished this! I cannot believe I am writing again! It feels soooooo good. I am only happy when writing and it has made me very happy to work on this. Only took me a year to finish. Sigh. I used to do this much in 2 weeks. I have so got to find a way to quit my day job and just write for a living. If anybody has any good connections to an agent/publisher, I'd love to pass along my two unpublished novels to them! Meanwhile, thanks to everybody who has read and reviewed. I LOVE reviews—even the critical ones. That's the only payment we get for writing fanfiction. So please drop a note to let me know you read. Even if you hate it! Thanks so much for letting me entertain—or try to entertain you! I do appreciate it very much!)_


	14. Publication!

Sorry to do this as an update to a finished work and maybe won't fuss too much about doing it, but I really wanted to get the word out to everybody who's subscribed to my big stuff in the past.

Over the years several of you have asked if I have anything in print other than Fanfiction and the answer is SOON!

My fantasy novel The Blacksmith's Daughter is set for release on October 21 at Musa Publishing! You will be able to download it as an ebook on October 21, 2011, at their website at musapublishing dot com or on Amazon and other such sites!

I would love it if you would take a moment to friend request me-as Arley Cole of course-on Facebook so I can create some buzz for the release. Plus I will provide updates and links to the book there and on my blog at www dot arleycole dot blogspot dot com.

I can't thank you enough for reading my Fanfiction. Writing for you all made it possible to write The Blacksmith's Daughter. I would not be here without you!

Sincerely,

Arcole

Arley Cole (gotta keep the pen names as close as possible!)


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